The theories of Darwin and their relation to philosophy, religion, and morality

Google

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project

to make the world's books discoverable online.

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the

publisher to a library and finally to you.

Usage guidelines

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.

About Google Book Search

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web

at |http: //books .google .com/I

Sli

HARVARD

COLLEGE
LIBRARY

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN

Hall, Stuttgart, April 5, 1880.

We hereby authorize the Rev. Dr. G. A. Zinimermaiin to translate
into English the book entitled :

Die DarwMschen TheoHen unci ihre Stellwig zur Philo-
sophies Heligion U7id Morale vo7i Rxcdolf Schniid.

We declare that we know of no other translation of the said
book, and that Dr. Zimmermann's translation will be the onl}' one
authorized by us for the United States, as well as for the British
Empire and its Dominions.

(The Author) Rudolf Schmid.

(The Publisher) Paul Moser.

I

THE

Theories of Darwin^

AND THEIR RELATION TO

■ PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, AND MORALITY.

Br RUDOLF ^HMID/

President of the Theological Seminary at Sch5nthaU WUrtemberg.

• ^

TRANSLATED FBOM TQX GEBMAK,

By G. A._ZIMMERMANN, Ph.D.

«

With an Introduction by

THE DUKE OF ARGYLL.

1-
■i

f

^CHICAGO:
JANSEN, McCLURG. & COMPANY.

'iK 1883.

y~" ■ ■- ■

■•^v*

» JW^ - ' ' • - , I ••. •Si

■ r

Wii

/ 1. .

C-^fe^'f c/''^^-,^^.ry'l^ .

Bt Jahsih. McCLnSB £ Co.

APR U 8 1991

a. a. DOmiLUT a

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

The movement which received its impulse as well as its
n^me from Darwin, seems to have recently passed its dis-
tinctest phase; but the more prominent points of opposition,
religious, ethical, and scientific, which have been revealed
through it, remain as sharply contrasted as before. The
author of this book desires, in the first pUce, to be of ser-
vice to such readers as feel the need of setting themselves
right u'pon these questions, which touch the highest interests
of mankind, but who lack time and opportunity to investigate
independently a realm in which so many and so heterogene-
ous sciences come into mutual contact. The illogical and
confused manner in which some noisy leaders confound
these sciences and their problems and consequences, renders
it still more difficult to arrive at a satisfactory result ; and
thus perhaps many readers will look with interest upon an'
investigation designed to simplify the different problems-
and the different attempts at their solution, and to treat
them not only in their relations to each other, but also sep-
. arately. But with this primary object, the author combines
another: to render a service to some among the many who
perceive the harmony between their scientific conviction
a;nd their religious need threatened or shaken by the results
of science, and who are unwilling to lose this harmony, or,
having lost it, desire to regain it. Those voices are indeed
becoming louder, and more generally and willingly heard,
which proclaim an irreconcilability between faith and know] -

K^%

AUTHOR 8 PREFACE.

edge, between the religious and the scientific views of the
world; which declare that peace between the two can only

be had at the price either of permitting the religious im- ";; .'^^^■J
pulses of the heart to be stifled in favor of science, of , ----'^''^,

satisfying the religious need of the mind with a nourishment ■. - /y,"H

which in the light of science proves to be an illusion, or, as .-, "-i^K

sceptics .in theory and eclectics in practice, of renouncing "-■-.■'.;sj^
with resignation a logical connection and foundation to their' ^.-X-.'^^
former view of the world. The most striking proof of the ■,-;"■ y'.^^

extent to which these voices are heard, is th,e fact that it has ' '^!^:^^

been possible for a one-sided pessimism to become the fash- ■ - ':ij'^^^^

ionabie system of philosophy in a Christian nation. The ■■~:''^!^

most effective means for opposing such discordant voices, '; ij^^
and for making amends for the disagreements which they ''i^S

have occasioned, undoubtedly consists in the actual proof of _"i' - 5^^

the contrary of their theories, in the clear presentation of a '\ '•' ^^•
standpoint from which not only the most unrestricted, free- .:"i^'

dom of investigation and the most unreserved acknowledg- - 'A-;
raent of its results shall be in perfect harmony with the '■'';■

undiminished care of our entire religious possession, but in - ■ " .{:
which this peace is preserved and forever established by .'.''"■

the very fact that one function of the mind directly requires ^ ^ • -

the other, one possession directly guarantees the other. ^. 'C t-:.^
This is the standpoint of the author, and from it heh^s -.^S' ■.'■
endeavored to, treat all the questions which arc to be taken '""
into consideration. Should he, by his exposition of this

standpoint, succeed in helping even a few readers in reach- .-
ing the conviction of the actual harmony between the scien- -
tific, religious, and ethical acquisitions of mankind, or in ' . . -

confirming them anew in such conviction, he would find ■ ", ;i-V

himself amply rewarded for this first extended venture before /' -■ '■'.-.
the public. ..

R. S.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO AMERICAN EDITION.

Six years have elapsed since I wrote the book which is
now going forth in English dress. The great leader of the
theories in question has passed away;, the waves of thought
he set in motion are assuming smoother shape ; and I can
only add to what I have already written, that not only have
I had no occasion to retract any of the statements or views
laid down in the book, but I perceive the religious as well
as the scientific world growing more and more into accord
with the views I have maintained, and which were at first
so vehemently opposed.

I owe so much to the literary men of the English tongue
on both sides of the Atlantic, that I shall be glad if, through
the devoted labors of the translator, I am enabled to pay
them a tribute of gratitude by aiding them in clearing the
way for thought in these much disputed fields, or in re-
conciling in their minds the conflict between faith and

science.

> » R. S,

ScHONTHAL, WuRTEMBERG, September^ 1882.

V •

^.. :

•ili-'

INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN EDITION,

BY THE DUKE OF ARGYLL.

It is well known that Mr. Darwin's theory on the Origin
of Species has been accepted in Germany more widely, with
more* absolute faith, and with more vehement enthusiasm,
V than in the country of its birth. In Germany, more con-
" spicuously than elsewhere, it has itself become the subject
of developments as strange and as aberrant as any which
it assumes in the history ofv Organic Life. The most
extravagant conclusions have been drawn from it — invading
every branch of human thought,^ in Science, in Philosophy,
and in Religion. These conclusions have been preached,
too, with a dogmatism as angry and as intolerant as any of
the old theologies. It is the fate of every idea which is
pew and fruitful, that it is ridden to the death by excited
novices. We can hot be surprised if this fate has overtaken
the idea that all existing animal forms have had their an-
cestry in other forms which exist no longer, and have been
derived from these by ordinary generation through count-
less stages of descent. Although this is an idea which,
whether true or not, is entirely subordinate to the larger
idea of creation, it usurps in many minds the character of a
substitute. This is natural enough. The theory, or at least
the language, of Evolutionists, puts forward a visible order
of pheiicmiena as a complete and all-sufficient account of its
own origin and cause. However unsatisfactory this may be
to the higher faculties of the mind, it is eminently satisfac-

5

< .

. *

»

6 INTRODUCTION.

tory to those other faculties which are lower in the scale.
It dismisses as needless, or it postpones indefinitely, ^11
thought of the agencies which are ultimate and unseen.
Just as in the physical world, some trivial object which is
very near us may shut out the whole of a wide horizon, so
in the intellectual world, some coarse mechanical conception
may shut out all the kingdom of Nature and the glory of it.

Two great subjects of investigation lie before us. The
first is to ascertain how far the Theory of Evolution repre-
sents an universal fact, or only one very partial and frag-
mentary aspect of a great variety of facts connected with
the origin and development of Organic Life. The second
and by far the most important inquiry, is to estimate aright,
or as "nearly as we can, the relative place and importance of
these facts in the Philosophy of Nature.

Subjects of investigation so rich and manifold as these
may well attract all the most varied gifts of the human
mind. This they have already done, and there is every
indication that they will continue to do so for generations
yet to be. Already an immense literature is devoted to
them ; and every fresh effort of observation and of reason-
ing seems to ppen out new and fruitful avenues of thought.
The work which is here introduced to the English reader
contains an excellent review of this literature, so far as it is
represented in the English and German languages. Know^
ing the author personally, as I hav2 done for many years, I
recognize with pleasure in his work all the carefulness of
inquiry, and all the conscientiousness of reasoning, which
belong to a singularly candid and patient mind.

Argyll.
Inverarv Castle, Scotland,

September^ iZ^2,

NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.

The consideration which this work has received from the
leaders of religious and philosophic thought in Germany,
and, indeed, wherever it has been read in its odginal form,
has led the translator to believe that an English version of
it. would be acceptable. Especially in America, where
religious problems and religious thought are so intimately
connected with the processes of scientific and philosophic
investigation, and where the agitation of these problems is
so peculiarly active and violent, it has seemed that a work
marked by so much scholarship, profundity, and compre-
.^hensiveness and originality of treatment, must serve an
important purpose to the cause of religious no less than of
scientific truth. It may be explained here, that the author
resided for some years in the family of the Duke of Argyll,
and there breathed, to a certain extent, the scientific air of
Darwinism in its very origin ; and thus his familiarity with
all the results of modern scientific research, added to his
theological and philosophical acquirements, enable him, with
a most admirable blending of the spirit of fairness and tol-
eration with logical severity of treatment, to bring these
different domains into their proper relation with each other
and to establish between them that essential harmony in
which consists' the solution of these most profound and
vital problems of man's welfare.

Of the translation it may properly be said that, while the
aim has been to give the work the clearest possible form
consistent with that strict fidelity to the original which is

)
t

■-/

-■<^v

8

NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.

especially demanded by the character of its material, the
translator has not hoped to make the work altogether "easy"
reading. Peculiarities of the author's style have been, it is
believed, largely preserved ; and occasional difficulties of
apprehension are no doubt to be expected, both from the
method of treatment and from the profound and abstruse
character of the topics treated. The translator will be well
satisfied if it shall be found that he has succeeded in per-
forming his task without adding unduly to the seeming
obscurities of certain passages — obscurities which, however,
will no doubt vanish before that degree of mental applica-
tion without which such works may not be read at all intel-
ligibly.

Acktaowledgments are properly due and are gladly ren-
dered to George C. Dawson, Esq., of Chicago, and to Mr.
Francis F. Browne, editor of TA^ JDia/, for valuable assist-
ance in revising and perfecting this version.

. G. A. Z.
Chicago, October^ 1882.

• ■ vji

■ ' ■ •*

■ • ■ f
■ . -■»

•r

..<

■■i>

■ - *

:r

r

i

t
J,.

r*- -

V' ■

. -*

, -*•'

f.:

CONTEISTTS.

Intboduction, 17

PART FIRST: *
THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

BOOK 1.
THE PURELY SCIENTIFIC THEORIES.
■ - ' The Scientific. Problem, 23

■* , ■

\.\ ■ ' CHAPTER I.

Rise op the Darwinian Theories.

-f §1. Direct Predecessors, - - - 80

§2. Indirect reparations, - - •. * - - . - 88

CHAPTER II.

History op the Darwinian Theories.

§1. Darwin, 88

§2. The Followers of Darwin— Ernst Hftckel, - - - 45

§3. Modifications of the Theory. — Moriz Wagner Wigand, 52

CHAPTER III.
Present State op the Darwinian Theories.

§1. The Theory of Descent, 61

t„. §2. The Theory of Evolution. — Archaeology, Ethnography,

■ ■ ;. Philology, 77

^. The Theory of Selection, 100

9

»

10

CONTENTS.

BOOK II.

THE PHILOSOPHIC COMPLETIONS AND CONSE-
QUENCES OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

The Philosophic Problems,' ....... 108

CHAPTER I.
The Naturo-Philosophic Supplements op the Darwinian

THEORIEa

§1. The Origin of Self -Consciousness and of Free Moral Self-

Betermination, 115

§2. The Origin of Sensation and of Consciousness, - - 127

§3. The Origin of Life, 132

§4. The Elements of the Worid ; the Theory of Atoms, and .

the Mechanical View of the Worid, - - - - 140

4

CHAPTER II.

Metaphysical Conclusions Drawn from the Darwinian

Theories.

§1. Elimination of the Idea of Design in the Worid. — Mo-
nism, - - . - 158

- -i .■»

-I- ' ■

. CONTENTS. 11

P.4i?r SECOND:

THE POSITION OF THE DARWINIAN

THEORIES IN REFERENCE TO

RELIGION AND MORALITY.

BOOK T.

HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL.

Plan of Treatment, ISo-

A. THE DXBWINIAN THEORIES AND RELIGION.

CHAPTER I.
f?^- More ob Lbss Negative Position In Reference to Religion.

- '' §1. Extreme Negation: L. BQchner and Consistent Mate-

/^ rialism, 18S

-; " ■ §2. Replacement of Religion Through a Religious Worship

;; . . of the Universe. — Strauss. Oskar Schmidt. Hftckel. 190-

- §3. Pious Renunciation of the Knowability of God. — Wil-

helm Bleek. Albert Lange. Herbert Spencer. - - 193
§4. Spinoza and Hegel in the Garb of Darwin. — Carneri,

Ed. von Hartmann, - 203^

§5. Reficho of Negation on the Side of the Christian View of
' ' the World, 206-

'> - CHAPTER 11.

Reform of Religion, or at Least of the Science of Re-
; ■ , LiGiON, Through Darwinism.

. §1. Heinrich Lang. Friedrich Vischer. Gustav JUger. • - 210

V CHAPTER III.

i : ' . Peace Between Religion and Darwinism.

§1. Darwin. Wallace. Owen. Asa Gray. Mivart. Mc-
Cosh. Anderson. K. E. von Baer. Alexander Braun.
Braubach, and others, 21T

V V

gi3 : .

i - ,—

■A-

12

C50NTEXTS.

. B. THE DARWimAN THEORIES AND MORALITY.

Prelimihaiy View,

228

V. • ^

CHAPTER IV.

Antagonism Bbtwben Darwinism and Morality.

§1. Objections to Darwinism from an Ethical Standpoint, - 230

, ^.

T »

CHAPTER V.

Reform op Morality Through Darwinism, v

«
§1. The Materialists and Monists. Darwin and the English

Utilitarians. Gustav Jager. 233

CHAPTER VI.
Neutrality and Peace Between Darwinism and Morality.
§1. Mivart. Alexander Braun, and others, .... 245

BOOK II.

ANALYTICAL.

Reliminary View,

249

A. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND RELIGION.

CHAPTER I.

"The Darwinian Theories and the Theistic View op the

World.

a. The Posiium of Purely Scientific Darwinism in Reference to
Theism.

§1. SeientiAe Pnyeatlgition and Theism.— The Idea of Crea-
tion, - - - - 252

V.

\ . .

La *.

■ . *

- " ■*■

I

CONTENTS. 13

The Descent Theory and Theism, .... 259

§8. The Evolution Theory and Theism, - - - - 263

§4. The Selection Theory and Theism, .... 270

b. The Darmnistie PJulosophemes in their Position Regard-
ing Theism,

§5. The Naturo-Philosophic Supplements of Darwinism and

Theism, - - 278

§6. Elimination of the Idea of Design, or its Acknowledg-
ment and Theism, - • 284

CHAPTER II.

The Darwinian Theories and Fositivb Christianity.

§1. The Creation of the World, - 290

§2. The Creation of Man,

§3. The Primitive Condition of Man. — ^Paradise, the Fall of

Man, and Primitive History, 821

§4. -Providence, Hearing of Prayer, and Miracles, - - 345
§5. The Redeemer and the Redemption, the Kingdom of

God, and the Receiving of Salvation, ... 373
§6. Eschatology, 375

B. THE DAE WimAN THEORIES AND MORALITY,

CHAPTER III.

Darwinism and Moral Principles.

§1. Darwinistic Naturalism and Moral Principles, - - 379
§2. Scientific Darwinism and Moral Principles, • - - 386

CHAPTER IV.

Darwinism and Moral Life. '

§1. Darwinistic Naturalism and Moral Life, - . - - 891
Scientific Naturalism and Moral Life, - - - - 396

Conclusion, 399

' ;

AUTHORS CITED.

Agassiz, Louis, 85, 87, 50, 820.

Anderson, 225.

Anonymus, *'the Unconscious,"

etc., 128,129, 181, 184, 159.
Anonymus, * * Vestiges, " etc. , 83.
ArgyU, Duke of, 50, 91, 92, 185,

172, 202, 288.
Ausland, 159. 240, 281.
Baer, Karl Ernst von. 86, 54, 56,

71. 74, 81. 88, 106, 182, 149.

160,177, 226, 259, 281, 288, 820.
Barrande, 54

Baumgftrtner, Heinrich, 57, 176.
Blanchard, Emil, 54. 106.
BJeek, Wilhelm. 17, 96, 97, 194,

197, 284, 286.
Boerhave, 86.
Braubach. 226.
Braun, Alexander, 55, 176, 226,

246. 897.
Braun, Julius, 17.
Buch, Leopold von, 52.
Buckle. 17.
BUcliner, Ludwig, 42, 118, 141,

158, 188, 205, 219, 288, 896.
Bufton, 81.
Carneri, 208, 288.
Cams, 86.
Christy, 90.
CondiUac, 96.
Cotta, Bernhard von, 51.
Curtius, 96.

Cuvier, 31, 82, 84, 87, 820.
Darwin, 17, 18, 25. 27, 88, 118,

171. 177, 217, 240, 820, 889.
Descartes, 127.
Dillman. 295, 801.
Dohm, 84.
DuBois-Reymond, Emil, 124, 125,

127, 180, 184, 149.

Ebrard, 159, 209.

Ecker. 56.

Escher, von der Linth, 54.

Farrar, 96.

Fechner, Gustav Theodor, 136,

146.
Fichte, Lnmanuel Hermann, 142,

175.
Fraas, Oskar, 55. 90.
Frohschammer. 175.
Gegenbaur, 56.
Gteiger, Lazar, 17, 96.
Geoffroy, St. Hilaire Etienne, 82, •

84
Gerhard, 197.
Giebel, 54
GSppert. 54
Gothe, 88, 84 85, 820.
Gray, Asa, 222.
Grusebach, 55.
Grimm, Jacob, 17, 95.
Hackel, 85, 42, 48, 45, 75. 78.

106, 128, 180, 188, 149, 159,

160, 166, 170. 204. 219, 284,

287, 281, 895.
Hartiftann, Eduard von, 56, 60,

106, 181, 142, 168, 176, 191,

205. 884. 876.
Heer. Oswald, 56, 176.
Hegel. 126, 186, 204
Helmholtz, 186, 159.
Heyse, 96.
Hilgendorf , 82.
His, Wilhelm, 56, 81, 106.
Huber, 175.

Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 17, 95.
Huxley, Thomas, 42, 50, 177, 198, .

222 279
Jager, Gustav, 51, 124, 214 243.-
Jellinghaus, 94

K

1 .

•\

' -.•.:.

AUTHOBS CITED.

15

Kant, 196, 282.
Keim, 18, 337.
Kolliker, 56, 81, 176.
Kostlin, JuUus, 175, 187.
Kostlin, Otto, 149.
Kowalewsky, A., 42.
Kowalewsky, W., 83.
Kurz, Johann Heinrich, 306.
Lamarck, 27, 30, 31, 33, 320.
Lang, Heinrich, 197, 210.
Lange, Friedrich Albert, 112,

168, 173, 176, 194, 196.
Lartet, 96.
Leibnitz, 127, 217.
Leidv, 83.
Lessmg, 405, 407.
Linnaeus, 30.
Livingstone, 93.
Lotze, 142, 145, 149.
Lubbock, Sir John,18, 91, 93, 242.
Lyell, Sir Charles, 18, 36, 65, 89,

90, 222.
Madler, 177, 252.
Malthus, 39.
Marsh, 83.
Martensen, 187.
Mayer, Robert von, 37, 129. 149,

i55
McCosh, 224.
Mill, John Stuart, 242.
Mivart, 55, 106, 223, 245.
Moleschott, 42.
Mailer, Fritz, 79. '
Mailer, Max, 18, 96, 9a
Murchison, Sir Roderick, 54.
Nfigeli, 56.

l^itzsch, Kari Immanuel, 361.
Noir<S, Ludwig, 281.
Oken, 34, 320.
Owen, lUchard, 35, 56, 164, 176,

221, 223, 820.
. Peschel, Oskar, 279.
Pf aff , 54.

Pfleiderer, Otto, 187.
Planck, Cari Ch., 105, 110.
Preyer, 186, 146, 163.
Rathke, Heinrich, '81.
Beichenbach, 42.
Benan, 18.

R^ville. Albert, 334.

Ritschl, 364.

Ratimeyer, 56, 83.

Sandberger, 55, 82.

Schaaffhausen, 56, 85, 177.

Schelling, 109.

Schiller, 180.

Schleicher, 17, 96.

Schleiden, 42, 51.

Schleiermacher, 190.

Schmidt, Oskar, 33, 34, 51, 75,

124, 159. 164, 191, 234.
Schopenhauer, 128, 190.
Schrader, "Eberhard, 345.
Seidlitz, 51, 159, 238.
Semper, Kari, 84, 131.
Snell, Kari, 42, 262.

Spencer, Herbert, 128, 139, 194,

242, 279.
Spinoza, 204.
Stael, Madame de, 234.
Steffens, 109.
Steinthal. 17, 96.
Strauss, David Friedrich, 18, 112,

125, 128, 15C>83, 174, 175,
190, 213, 234, 33773?fi^394.

Swammerdam, 36.

Tait, 138.

Thomson, Sir William, 138.

Trampelmann, 209.

Tabingen School, 18.

Tylor, 91.

XJlrici, 142, 144, 149. 175, 235.

Virchow, 56, 85.

Vischer, Friedrich, 175, 176, 213,

264.
Vogt, Kari, 42, 56.
Volkmann, A. W., 56, 105, 177.
Wagner, M6riz. 52, 56.
Wallace, Alfred Russell, 37, 101,

177, 221, 262.
Wedgewood, 96.
Weismann, 56.
Wigand, Albert, 26, 52, 56, 57,

106, 135, 149, 170, 226.
Wundt, 142.
Wartemberger, 82.
Zittel, 56.
Zeilner, 128, 129, 131, 138, 139.

• - "i -.• '''■>■ ^ _ . •■ ■

- >>>.-'»

r'^-

The Theories of Darwin,

AND THBIR RELATION TO

PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, AND MORALITY.

INTRODUCTION.

•

With the appearance of Darwin's "Origin of Spe-
cies," on the 24th of November, 1859, a new impulse
began in the intellectual movement of our generation.
It is true, the whole theory advocated and inaugurated
by Darwin is, in the first place, only one of the many
links in the long chain of phenomena in the realm of
the intellectual development of our century, all of which
have the same character, and give their stamp to the
entire mental work of the last decades. This stamp
consists in the tendency of science, which .has nearly
become universal, not^ only to consider all phenomena,
both of the physical and the mental life, in connection
with their preceding conditions in space and time, but
to trace them back, naore or less exclusively to these
conditions, and to explain them exclusively by means of
the same. What a Wilhelm von Humboldt, and, still
more, a Jacob Grimm, prepared the way for in the realm
of philology, a Lazar Geiger and a Steinthal, and (under
direct influence of Darwin) a Schleicher and a Wilhelm
Bleek further developed ; what Julius Braun did in the
realm of the history of art; what a Buckle and a Sir

8 (17)

;*^;

'^^^^^^M'^-<^^^ : -■ ■'■■■

18

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

John Lubbock tried to do in the realm of the history of
civilization; what a Max Miiller did in the realm of the
history of religion; what the Tiibingen School began
and its disciples carried out in the realm of the exegesis
of the Bible; what a Strauss and a Renan, and in a cer-
tain sense also a Keim, did in the realm of christology;
what, finally — without being so closely connected with
individual names — was also done in the realm of the
world's history : this, Darwin did in the realm of the
history of the organic kingdoms, seconded by the geo-
logical principles of Sir Charles Lyell and by the inves-
tigations in biology and comparative anatomy of a
number of scientists. From this point of view, the
moveirient which was inaugurated by Darwin seems to
us but the reflex of the universal spirit of the present
time upon a particular realm ; namely, that of natural
science. But since, soon after the appearance of the
before-mentioned work and long before the publication
of Darwin's " Descent of Man,'' man also was included
in the consequences of the evolution theory, and his
existence was explained as a wholly natural development
out of lower animal forms; since Darwin himself unre-
servedly adopted this theory of the descent of man from
the animal world as an entirely natural consequence of
his doctrine of the origin of i^ecies, the evolution
question has gone far beyond the proportionately narrow
and limited bounds of natuml philosophy and of merely
theoretical scientific interest — has surpassed in interest
all the before-mentioned investigations, however livel}*^
this interest was and is to-day, and has stirred up the
minds of all most thoroughly, not only in their scientific
but also in their religious and ethical depths, some in

INTRODUCTION. * 19^

.acknowledgment and admiration, others in aversion and
repugnance, and only a few in sober and unprejudiced
judgment While some see in Darwinism the flambeau
which now lights mankin(l4x) entirely new paths of truth, :
and also to spiritual and moral perfection, others see in
it only an unproved hypothesis, threatening to become
the torch which might change the noblest and greatest
acquirements of the culture of past centuries into a heap
of ashes; while some date from it a new period of cul-
ture, others see in it a deep descent of the present from
the scientific, religious, and moral height which mankind
has ascended.

Under these circumstances, it has become an impossi-
bility for religion and the moral interest as guardians
of the highest and most sacred acquisitions of mankind,
and still more for theology and ethics as the scientific
reprasentations of religion and morality, to remain idle
spectators. It would certainly be more agreeable to
^them, and more profitable, if they could delay, their
judgment until the question became better cleared up.
For the whole question presented by Darwin has not yet
passed beyond the stage of problems and attempts at
solution ; and there is always something unsatisfactory
in being compelled to deal with theories which in their
fundamentals are still hypotheses. But since all tenden-
cies of the present which, are hostile to Christianity and
to the theistic view of the world, from the most extreme
materialism up to the most sublime monism (as panthe-
ism and materialism of to-day have begun to call them-
selves), seemingly with the confidence of complete vic-
tory, take possession of Darwinism as the solid ground
firom which they hope to destroy all and every belief

•iff

'',■■■""•

—•_■•■

...V'' *V.-t*>T

20

THE THEORIES OP DARWIN.

connected with faith in a living creator and master of
the world, it has also become impossible for those to
whom the religious and ethical acquisitions of mankind
are a sacred sanctuary to take any longer a reserved and
expectant position. Silence now would be looked upon
only as an inglorious retreat ; and thus nothing remains
but openly to face the question : What position must
religion and morality take in reference to the Darwinian
theories?

In order to treat of the question with that objectivity
which it requires, we have to begin with a synopsis of
the theories themselves. In this representation we have
to discriminate strictly between the merely scientific
theories and the naturo-philosophical and metaphysical
supplements and conclusions which have been brought
into connection with them. For precisely in the mixing
of the most different problems which are to be con-
sidered here, lies the main cause of the confused and
superficial judgment which is so often heard upon these
questions

- ^ ■*••_

' -• -

r': y

■._ » •- - •

•:" •'■

•--*-

PART I.

The Theories of DARwnr.

^

.♦ ■ - V - .

4 .'_

(21)

'i^'&tl" *-J. ' •■

*S»J»ft^«r''V.1 I'

i::..:

■ V'^.

. '1 '

. ?'■■ - '
/,■:'■'

x'y.

■■*.•■

/'-. -

'h

r-^

- /

BOOK I.

THE PURELY SCIENTIFIC THEORIES.

THE SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM.

The interesting problem which underlies Mr. Dar^
win's theories is the answer to the question : JIow did
the different species of organic beings on the earth origi-
nate f We find ourselves in the midst of an endless
variety of organic beings, animals and plants ; we see
ourselves, so far as regards the entire physical part of
our being, in relationship with this organic world —
especially with the organization and physical functions
of the animal body. The organic individuals come and
go. They originate by being begotten by and bom of
individuals of the same kind, or they spring up through
the formation of germs and buds ; and they produce in
the same way new individuals, that resemble them in
all essential characteristics. Ljke ajways begets like, so
far as our observations go. But not only the indir
viduals, but even the species to which they belong, must
have originated at some definite period of time — and,
indeed, as geology tells us, not all at once, but in a long
series, which stretched through immeasurable epochs of
the earth's history. Thus we come face to face with the
question, already put, which we can now formulate more

(23)

'^

AfHi'JiiL. -S -^i. ■■>*-

•,^. ^Tw^— i-

24 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

precfisely : Sow did the first individuals of each orga/nio
species come into existence ?

No human being ever has observed, nor ever could
) observe, the origination of a new species, because man,
as it seems, did not appear on the earth until all the
other organisms were in existence. For this reason,
the scientists for a long time thought it unprofitable to
occupy- themselves with this question ; and even in our
time. a great many of them declare the question to be
absolutely insolvable, and every attempt at answering it
to be an unjustifiable use of hypotheses. But the impulse
toward investigation admits of no limitation so lono: as
there is any probability of extending its field of action.
"Especially in the province of nature, so many things which
could not be discovered by mere observation have been
traced indirectly, and so many important and established
facts have been added to our stores of knowledge,
by first starting from hypothetical premises, that irian
has again and again endeavored to approximate an
answer to the question of the origin of species by taking
the indirect course of hypothesis and induction, when-
ever the direct way of observation did not lead to any
result. Religion of course gives a solution to the prob-
lem by stating that the species have been originated by
the creative act of God. It is wrong to say that this
solution is opposed to the above-mentioned impulse
toward investigation ; for this solution suflSces for reli-
gion, ^whether a natural progress in the origination of
species be established or not. For, to the believer in
religion, the whole universe, with all its objective phe-
nomena and growth, is the work of God as well as the'
individuals of the already existing species ; and a

s/>\-^^vi^:--^^

THE SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM. 25

closer acquaintance with the manner of their origin is
not only no disturbance to his ground of belief, but, on
the contrary, an addition to his knowledge of the method
of God's action. la every man of sound mind, the
religious faith is not antagonistic or even indiflFerent to
the scientific impulse toward investigation, but stands
upon a most intimate footing with it. Hence the human
intellect again and again makes the attempt to find
an answer to the problem of the origin of species in a
scientific way, and each endeavor of this kind necessa-
rily ends with the dilemma that either the first individ-
uals of a species, np matter whether it be the highest or
the lowest, have been evolved out of inorganic matter,
or they originated by descent from the most closely
related species of their predecessors. The denial of the
first part of our dilemma, and the affirmation of the
second, is the "Theory of Descent."

But this theory of descent leads us at once into
another dilemma. If the species originated by descent
from the most closely related lower species, and under
certain circumstances also from species of the same
rank, and even by degeneration from the next higher, it
must have occurred in one of two ways : either by leaps
— called by naturalists, "metamoiphosis of germs "or
"heterogenetic conception" — or by a succession of imper-
ceptibly small alterations of the individuals from genera-
tion to generation. Each of these changes would have
been no greater than the diflFerences we observe to-day
between the individuals of the very same species, but
became in the course of time so massed and strengthened
in one direction that new species have been evolved.
This hypothesis' is called the "Theoiy of Development,"

26 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

or "Evolution." We retain this name, although well
aware of the fact that the authors do not agree in their
use of the term "evolution." Professor Wigand, who
adopts only the theory of a descent from one primordial
cell to another, and, who positively rejects the idea of a
progress from one fully developed species to another,
claims among other things that one value of his own
theory is that he secures for the idea of evolution its full
meaning. The expression still has a meaning for those
who reject the real descent of the species or their prim-
ordial germs one from another, and acknowledge only
the ideal bond of a common plan in their successive
manifestations. But as soon as we examine more closely
the literal and logical meaning of the word, we shall find
it of most weight when we understand by it the before-
mentioned gradual evolution in opposition to the theory
of progress by leaps or new creations. Moreover, it is
well known that long before this no other term than
evolution was used to designate the growth of a single
organic individual from the primordial cell and egg to
its fully developed form and vital function. "Besides, we
find ourselves also in harmony with most of the authors,
so far as they have distinct conceptions of the different
scientific problems, if we use tlie term "theory of evo-
lution " for the gradual development of one species from
another, in opposition to the hypothesis of a metamor-
phosis of germs, or even of a genealogy of primordial
cells.

But each evolution theory leads again to new the-
ories, as soon as it has to be proved in a scientific
way. For it can claim a scientific worth only when sus-
tained by earnest attempts to find and prove the produc-

» '■•■*■

THE SCIENTinC PROBLEM.

27

tive power, agencies and laws of such an evolution of
species. Those attempts can be made in various ways.
As a philosophical question, many attempts at solu-
tion have been made, both in ancient and modem times;
but being mainly in the realm of metaphysics, they do
not come within the limits of our scientific essay. As a
question for investigators of natural phenomena, only
' two attempts of sufficient importance to be mentioned
have been made. The first one was made by Lamarck,
who, taking the really different ideas of descent and
evolution as one, made use of the hypothesis of trans-
mutation; thus becoming the pioneer of Darwinism.
The other attempt was made bj'' Darwin in his theory of
natural s^ection, or struggle for existence, and is called
the "Theory of Selection.''

In defining our problem, therefore, we find ourselves
under the influence of a scientific law of development.
The simple problem which we started from has devel-
oped into a trinity of problems and attempts at solution.
The simple question of the origin of species led us into
the dilemma of a generatio cequivoca^ or a descent; the
hypothesis of a descent led to the dilemma of a hetero-
genetic conception, or an evolution ; and the hypothe-
sis of an evolution rendered necessary the attempt at
explaining this evolution, and showed Darwin's method
of explaining it by his selection theory. It will be well
for the reader to keep distinctly in mind the diflerence
between these pi*oblems and theories, in following our
investigations, even if we cannot arrange our historical
sketch according to the natural principle of division
arising from these differences.

For it lies in the nature of the question itself, that

- . - - - - ^' - .: '^ • V • - ■ J .

' %y."i **Vi, •-.•'.- *'' ^. ^ ^ .. ■•■

■^MJii?^'^^^''^<^-- ''-'y ■-■■■ ■^' ^ ■■'.- ■' ■

^*^Vf.i •■ -r

.].. .^-L. ^ -._.

28 THE THEOBIE8 OF DABWIN.

these theories, in their historical progress, did not ap-
pear singly, but together. Those who inclined to the
theory of a descent of species could claim for it the
attention of scientific investigators only after having also
made the attempt at conceiving this descent in a con-
crete way, and according to certain analogies of obser-
vation. The only analogy of the kind appeared in the
sphere of individual development and individual differ-
ences on the one hand, and in that of closely related
characters of allied species on the other; and thus led
of itself to the evolution theory. As soon as the natural-
ists thought they had found the causes of such an evo-
lution of the species, they naturally placed these causes
in the foreground of their demonstrations, and erected
upon them the structure of their entire theorj'; thus
treating descent, evolution and selection as one single
and indissolubly connected theory. But this manner of
treating the question had also its dangers, which have
already caused a great deal of confusion and misunder-
standing, as well as much unprofitable controversy.
Often friends and enemies of the theories placed that
which was in favor of the theory of descent to the creilit
of the evolution or selection theory; and, on the other
hand, that which seemed oppos^ni to the selection theory
Was often held to be a weakening of the evolution and
descent theory; and this was done, not only by ama-
teurs, but often enough by the highest authorities also.
In reality, however, it is quite conceivable that the idea
of a descent may prove correct, and possibly the idea
of an evolution of the species will have to be replaced
by that of a heterogenetic generation, or by the theory
that certain groups in the organic system are originated

THE SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM. 29

by heterogcnetic generation, and others by evolution;
and so the evohition theory must share with the theory
of heterogenetic generation, or of a metamorphosis of
germs. On the other hand, it is conceivable that even
where the evolution theory is confirmed, the evolution
can be accounted for wholly or partly by other rea-
sons than those derived from the selection theory. And
even this result of present investigations is not incon-
ceivable : that the reasons for and against the different
theories will be found to balance one another to such a
degree that they will sooner or later lead science, in an-
swering the question of the origin of species, to the old
confession of Socrates — " Ignoramfus.^^

We shall, therefore, have to arrange our historical
sketch according to the historical order of the appear-
ance of the theories, and treat the problems more or less
as an undivided whole. But we shall keep in mind,
during our historical sketch, not only the logical separ-
ation of the problems in question, in order not to lose
clearness of judgment, but we shall also at the end of our
review, if we consider the present condition of the pro-
blems, have to examine the same once more in detail^
80 far as regards the above mentioned separation.

At- .■•■->■■

30

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

CHAPTER I.

RISE OP THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

§ 1. Direct Predecessors. — Lamarck.

The first man who gave direct expression to the idea
of a successive generation of the species through trans-
mutation, and who attempted to follow it up in a scien-
tific way, was the French naturalist and philosopher,
Jean Lamarck, born 1744. In the year 1801, and sub-
sequently, he published his views, fii-st in smaller essays
and afterward inbre in detail in his '-^ Philosophie Zool-
ogique^^^ which appeared in 1809, and in the first volume
of his " nistoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertehres^^^
published in 1815. In these works Lamarck upholds
fully the descent and evolution theory, and maintains
that the simplest organisms are generated through a
generatio spontan^^ which is still taking place; but that
all the more developed organisms, including man, are
descended through a gradual change from other species.
With this theory, he put himself in direct and con-
scious opposition to the old doctrine of the immutabil-
ity of species and their characteristics, which had been
ably maintained by Linnaeus, and also made some at-
tempts at (explanation which approach very nearly the
selection theory. A change in the physical conditions
of life, especially the force of habit in the use or disuse
of the organs, the inheritance of physical and psychical

•■ • ■ ' « ■■■ • ■ ■ in ' I. I I ■ I r

• ■* -

RISE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 31

qualities thus attained, and the extension of the process
of transmutation into extraordinarily long periods of
time with very slight changes, are also, in his view, the
probable causes of the variation and development of the
species. He only lacks the idea of a natural selection
in the struggle for existence, and the comparison of the
processes in nature with the methodical selection of man
in the breeding of domestic animals and plants, to iden-
tify his views with those of Darwin.

At first, Lamarck met only with violent opposition;
but after a little while his views ceased to attract atten-
tion. The time had not yet come to make such an
attempt at observing nature from the standpoint of evo-
lution. The sciences which favor such a mode of
observation, and even demand it — such as comparative
anatomy and physiology and the history of the devel-
opment of the different plants and animals — were only in
their infancy, or were — like palaeontology and the com-
parative geography of plants and animals — not yet in
existence. The influence of Linnaeus, whose views diamet-
rically opposed those of Lamarck, predominated over
all the investigations of natural science ; Buffon, who
favored the ideas of Lamarck, and loved to trace a unity
in natural phenomena, was too instable in his investi-
gations and views to arrive at a comprehensive principle;
and even the eminent naturalist, Cuvier, of Montpellier,
showed in his observation of nature a predilection for
analysis rather than synthesis, and although his compre-
hensive mind inclined to generalize and explain, he placed
himself in decided opposition to a theory which was
founded only on a few decisive facts.

This last mentioned deficiency seems to have been

«'^ '■ iiiTU-

32 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

the main cause of Lamarck's views soon being lost sight
of. They nowhere found a support in facts; the force
of habit played in them an exaggerated and unnatural
rdle; the diflFerent illustrations of them — such as the
long neck of the giraffe explained by the permanent and
inherited habit of browsing on the branches of high trees,
or the web on the toes of frogs, swimming-birds, etc., ex-
plained by the habit of swimming — were talked about
and' laughed at more as curiosities than as worthy of
serious consideration.

Only twice after this did the question put by La-
marck attract wider attention from the learned world.
The first time was when, in 1830, the bitter contest

r

arose at the Academy of Paris, between Cuvier and
Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire, the father of Isidor
G. St. Hilaire. Geoffroy St. Hilaire had views sim-
ilar to Lamarck's, but reached them from quite a
diflerent standpoint — from the observation of the
analogy and homology of the organs ; and account-
ed for the variation of species, not by the use or disuse
of the organs, but on the one hand by the common orig-
inal type of the organs, and on the other by the varied
influence *of the surroundings — the monde ainhiant, La-
marck himself seems not to have been mentioned in this
contest. The controversy turned much » more on the
question whether in observing nature we can proceed
by synthesis and find in the analogies of the organisms
the principles for explaining the real connection bet\Yeen
the* different organic forms, or whether the analytical
process is the only correct one, and the synthetical
should be discarded. The solution of it will probably
be, that the one process must be supplemented by the

RISE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 33

other, as Goethe has already shown in his account of
this controversy; but at that time it was decided in favor
of the analytical principle, and the question was for the
time dropped. It came up for a second time, but
created little excitement, in 1844, when an anonymous
work, "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,"
directed the attention and the interest of scientists again
to Lamarck and his doctrine. But this interest also
soon came to an end, until through Darwin's first publi-
cation the half-forgotten man again suddenly attained
great honor.

Those who wish to form a closer acquaintance with
the diflferent advocates of the evolution theory before
Darwin's appearance, will find them carefully arranged
in the historical sketch which Darwin gives in the intro-
duction to his work on " The Origin of Species " ; and
the most important extracts of Laimarck's *' Philosojphie
Zoologique^'^ are to be found in Oscar Schmidt's '' Descent
and Darwinism."*

§ 2. Indirect Preparations.

While thus the ideas of Lamarck gradually fell into
partial oblivion, yet contemporaneous with and follow-
ing them arose several other series of thoughts, views,
and investigations, which, although they only indirectly
prepared for the revival of the evolution theory, yet
exercised a deeper and more lasting influence on the
minds of scientists. We ref^r to the ideas in regard to
natural phenomena held during the first decades of our
century ; further, to the principles of comparative anat-
omy which, up to the present time, partly dependent

**'Tlie latemational Scientific Series." No. xiil
3

rVi* * '■ * K'^ "•■ «-^-

34 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

and partly independent of natural philosophy, have
been expressed, valued, and admired as leading thoughts;
and, lastly, to the empiric results of comparative ana-
tomical and biological investigations in palaeontology and
geology, as attained by the help of those very .princi-
ples. And even physics and astronomy had to coop-
erate in preparing the way for the idea of evolution.

The philosophical ideas referred to, together with
the points of vieiv and results of comparative anatomy,
led more and more decisively to the idea of an origiiial
form^ or type^ which retains its identity in all the modi-
fications of form in plants and a.nimals; and of a ground-
plan^ which is realized in the systems of the plant and
animal world in higher and higher differentiations and in
more and more developed modifications, diverging farther
and failher from the prototype until it reaches its highest
form, still reducible to the prototypes, in the most highly
organized dicotyledons in plants, and in the animal
world in the mammalia, and lastly in man. '

Men like Cuvier and Geoffroy St. Hilaire, who oth-
erwise stand diametrically opposed to each other, unite
in these and kindred ideas. The naturalist Oken attains
the same result, tinged with the views of Schelling; the
poet Goethe, from an intuitive knowledge of nature,
arrived at the same conclusion. The former, during a jour-
ney in the Hartz Mountains, at the sight of a^ bleached
deer's skull, and the latter, upon picking up a sheep's skull
in the Jewish cemetery at Venice, were struck by the
same thought : the skull is only a modified verte-
bra. Oken founded upon this idea and kindred analogies
his profound philosophy of the system of animals
and plants which comes very near to the evolution the-

RISE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 35

ory, and in his cosmogony traces -all organisms to a pro-
toplasm in such a way as to bring him in this respect
also very near to Darwinism. Goetlie, in his metamor-
phosis of plants, develops ideas in which, in all serious-
ness, he makes a concrete application of his thought of
a prototype to the leaf of a plant ; and proved for zool-
ogy the fruitfulness of his idea of a type by his well
known discovery of the mid-jaw bone in man. Although
Oscar Schmidt seems to be decidedly right in supposing,
in opposition to Ernst Hackel, that Goethe did not
intend to have his idea of unity and development
taken in a real but in an ideal sense, and hence could
not be called a direct repi'esentative of the evolution
theory; still he is all the more decidedly a predecessor
of that theory in directing attention to the unity in plan
and metamoiphosis of plants and animals. Louis Agas-
siz, who, on the other hand, continued up to his death
in opposition to the entire doctrine of descent, made the
idea of types the principle of his whole classification,
and said : '' Man is the purpose toward which the
whole animal creation tends from the first appearance of
the first paleozoic fish." Richard Owen, who rejected

. the selection theory and favored that of descent, pub-
lished, long before Darwin's appearance, some most
interesting results of his anatomical and palseontological
investigations from the point of view of the prototype

_and its modifications. "Man, from the beginning of
organisms, was ideally present upon the earthy'' Js^&
sentience which we quote from Owen's works.

In short, tiiis ideal momentum in the observation of

. the organic kingdoms is not only the most beautiful

blossom and the ripest fruit of the union between laJ[)o-

36 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

rious and comprehensive detailed investigations and a
generalizing philosophic penetration, but it was also a
very efficient preparation of the mind tor the evolution
problem, so far as the summing i;ip of the organisms
under a type and plan is only the ideal reverse of its
realistic reduction to a common i)edigree.

We have yet to add the investigations in regard to
the history of evolution of the single organisms, as well
as those in comparative anatomy, which in former cen-
turies were begun by scientists like Swammerdam and
Boerhave and carried more nearly to completion by K.
E. von Baer, Cams, and others. In reducing all the
tissues of plants and animals to one cell, and tracing
back also their individual developments to the fii-st
diflFerentiation of the simplest cell, they followed out the
unity of the plan of the organic kingdoms — which hith-
erto had been maintained only ideally and proclaimed as
a philosophic postulate — farther and deeper into the
sphere of empiric reality. We must mention, moreover,
the great palseontological discoveries which, from the
first foraminifera of the Cambrian formations up to the
historical i^eriod of man, - showed a great progressive
scale in the appearance of the organisms and a very wide
relationship between this scale and the natural systems
of botany and zoology ; and, finally, the principles of
geology, which, under the leadership of Sir Charles
Lyell, starting from the idea of an identity of the powers
which were active in former times with those of the
present, attempted to explain the most violent of the
changes in the earth^s crust in former times by causes
active to-day. This often explains prodigious effects —
such as tiie elevation and^setfling of entire mountains

RISE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 37

and continents — ^liy the constant and repeated action of
the slightest causes and most gradual steps ; it opens
the perspective into vast epochs of long and numerous
geological periods; and sometimes, where scientists like
Cuvier and Agassiz have supposed the most complete
cataclysms and the most universal revolutions of the
globe, there prove to have been only gradual changes
with revolutions very partially and locally limited.

Finally, if we take into consideration the grand dis-
coveries which strikingly illustrate the connection in ex-
tent and quality between the universe and all its agencies
and powers — such as Robert von Mayer's discovery of
the conservation of force and of the mechanical equiva-
lent of heat, or the spectrum analysis and the informa-
tion which it gives us by ever-increasing evidences of the
identity of the cosmic and telluric siibstimccs — we may
venture to say that the scientific and intellectual ground
was well prepared for a theory which takes the origin
of organisms into this common relationship of the essen-
tial unity and development of the universe.

Only one thing more reihained to complete the
hypothesis offered by Lamarck, of the fact of a develop-
ment of species by a new and more satisfactory answer
to the question as to the manner of their development.
The task of answering in a more comprehensive and
scientific Way the question as to the manner of develop-
ment has been Undertaken by Darwin in his selection
theory. Alfi^ Russell Wallace, who arrived at the
same results WJWtemporaneously with and independently
of Darwin, has, with praiseworthy modesty, renounced
his claim to priority of the discovery, as Darwin had
b^en lofagi^r engaged in working out his theories and
had begun to collect materials for proof.

r^^^^'-'' "■■' J '■■.-.■ ■ ■

-'— * i ii> ■■- '- -I ■"

38 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

§ 1. Darxoin,

In order to explain the development of higher spe-
cies from lower ones in a natural way, Darwin starts
from two facts. The first fact is, that all individuals of
the same species show, besides their specific similarity,
individual differences: a fact which we call the law of
iivdividual va/t*iaMlity. The other fact is, that each indi-
vidual inclines to transmit to his off*spring all his quali-
ties — not only the characteristics of the species, but also
those of the individual : a fact which we call the Icuw of
heredity.

To show how the whole basis of explanation of the
evolution of one species from another is given in these
two facts, Darwin calls attention to the rules according
to which the often extraordinarily great varieties of
domestic animals and cultivated plants are obtained and
preserved ; namely, the rules of artificial breeding. The
breeder simply selects from a species those individuals
having such individual qualities as he wishes to preserve
and to increase, and refrains from breeding those indi-
viduals which do not possess the characteristics he wants
or which possess them only in a small degree. He
continues the same process with the next generation;
iand by the constant and effectual agency of the two

- HISTORY OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 39

before-mentioned laws, he will, after the lapse of a few
generations, have breeded a variety in which the char-
acteristics originally belonging only to a single individ-
ual have l>econie common and permanent.

It is now important to consider whether nature, in
luitural selection {wYnQXiQie the name "Sehection Theory")
does not act unconsciously according to the same rules,
and attain the same results, as man with his artificial
and intentional selection ; and, furthermore, whether she
does not reach results which, according to that principle
of natural selection, finally explain the origin of all,
even of the highest and most complicated organisms,
from one single original form or a few original and
simplest forms. Darwin finds these questions answered
in the aflSfmative; and amves at this answer through
the following conclusions.

The English political economist Malthus (1766-1834),
in his ''Essay on the Principles of Population," estab-
lished a law in regard to the growth of the human race,
which may be applied just as well to all the species of
the entire organic world: that populationtends to increase
in a geometrical ratio, although the conditions of life for
the individual remain the same or at most increase in
an arithmetical ratio. The consequence is that if the
species is to be preserved and the individuals of future
generations are to continue to find sufficient food and
other means for sustaining life, a great many individ-
uals of each generation must perish very early, and
even as germ and seed, and only a riiinority will be
preserved and reproduced. This exuberant prodigality
of life-germs, of which proportionately only a few are
preserved and reproduced, takes place in the plant and

^m::-

40 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

animal world in n very marked degree. There a con-
tinual struggle for existence prevails; each individual has
to get access to his conditions of life by Wresting them
from a whole series of other individuals of his own or
other species; and now the question arises: which indi-
viduals will survive in this. struggle? which will more
probably be preserved and procreate offspring? Evi-
dently, the answer is, those individuals which possess
individual characteristics more favorable to the preserva-
tion of the individual than those possessed by other
individuals. These individual characteristics are trans-
mitted to the next generation. In this there will be
again individuals that have in a still higher degi^ee the
characteristics thus transmitted and favorable for the
preservation of the individual, or that add to these favor-
,able characteristics new characteristics favorable in an-
other direction to the survival of the individual in the
struggle for existence. While these individuals, with
more probability than the others, are thus preserved
and reproduced, they transmit to their offspring not
xmly the old favorable characteristics increased, but also
ttiose newly added. Among the favorable individual
qualities, Darwin reckon:^ the divergence of character,
the perfection of organization, and the law of correla-
tion; the latter, however, can not be explained by""
natural selection, since according to this law a variation
in an organ brings about a corresponding variation in
entirely different organs (e. g.^ cats with white fur and
blue eyes are also deaf).

This is natural selection hy means of the swvival of
the fittest in the struggle for existence. Changes in the
conditions and surroundings of life, and more or less

HISTORY OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

41

perfect adaptiition of the organisms to the new condi-
tions of form, color, food and habit, are the main causes
of those individual variations, the accumulation of
which through many generations produces so great ef-
fects. If we only have behind us }>eriods long enough
to permit us to imagine each step in the development
as an extremely small and hardly appreciable one, nat-
ural selection oflfers us not the exclusive but the main
means of explaining the evolution of the whole animal
and plant world out of one or a few simple organized
original forms.

This is the outline of the selection theory, as
given by Darwin in 1859, and still retained in all its
essentials. It is true, in his work on the origin of man
he added as supplemental the sexiuil to the common nat-
ural selection, and made it of special importance for the
presentation of the beautiful in nature — for the produc-
tion of beautiful forms, colors, and tones, and for the
development of power and intelligence. And in the
same work he said that there are many circumstances of
structure which seem to be neither beneficial nor detri-
mental to the individual, and that to have overlooked
this fact was one of his greatest mistakes in his former
publications. But for the rest, he maintains the selec-
tion theory unchanged, with the single modification
that it explains, if not the whole development of the
species through descent, at least that which is of most
importance in it

That it was only one step in the course of reasoning
to extend the selection theory to the descent of man,
was seen by many as soon as Dafwin's work on the ori-
gin of species was published and ^egan to attract at-

1.

•-.•> -.

rg.» .m.- >'i|--pl-|; ■ ■ '1*. t ^

- >

42 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

tention; although not a syllable upon this question was
presented in this work. Various persons manifested
their presentiment or perception according to their }X)int
of view — partly by the most violent opposition to the
new doctrine, partly by scientific development or modi-
fication of their anthropogonic views, partly also by
revelling in imagination in the consequences hostile to
religious faith which they thought could be drawn from
this doctrine. We remind the reader of the itinerant
lectures of Karl Vogt about the ai^-jiedigree of man,
and of the echo they found by assent or dissent in press
and public; also of Huxley in England, Karl Snell,
Schleiden, Reichenbach, and others; of the materialists,
L. Biichner and Moleschott, and of the publications of
Ernst Hackel. Finally, Darwin himself made us fully
certain of the importance which from the beginning he
had attributed to his theory, by publishing his work on
the "Descent of Man," in the year 1870.

In this work he explained the descent of man fully
from the before-named principles of the descent, evolu-
tion, and selection theories, of* which we have given all
the essentials in the foregoing presentation. He carefully
enumerates everything in the structure of the human
body that reminds us of our relationship with the animals
— especially those embryonic phenomena and rudimen-
tary organs in man which are still to be found in use
and in a more developed state in different animal sj^ecies,
and which led him to imagine our ancestors now with a
tail, then with sharp ears, now living in the* water,
then being hermaphrodites. He reviews the spiritual
qualities of man, and finds for them all^analogous qual-
ities in the animal world. He finds in his work ^n

HISTORY OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 43

"Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals,"
published in 1872, new confirmation of the genealogical
relationship of both. He looks over the whole course
of the zoloogical system and of palseontological dis-
coveries, and searches for the points where the branches
and twigs of the animal pedigree of man must have
diverged. To begin with the lowest branches, he thinks
the most important divergence took place where the
series of vertebrates may have 'been developed out of
the invertebrates. Here he adopts the investigations of
A. Kowalewsky, and the deductions of Hackel founded
upon them, concerning the larva of the ascidiae, a genus
of marine mollusca of the order tunicaia, and sees in
a cord, to be found in this larva, most decided relation-
ship to the spine of the lancelet fish or amphioxjis, the
lowest of all the vertebrates, it being yet doubtful
whether it belongs at all to the vertebrates. In the
transition that once took place from one species of ascid-
ian laiTa to a form similar to the lancelet fish, he sees
the new branch diverging in the series of vertebrates.
Out of the fish he concludes that the amphibia were
developed, and out of those the i^eptilia, out of one of
them the marsupialia, and from them the lemurs or half-
apes, the representatives of which yet live in Madagas-
car and the isoutheni part of Asia. From these there
branched off on the one side the platyrrhini, or apes
with a flat nose, on the new continent ; on the other,
the cataiThini, or apes with a narrow nose, on the old.
Among the ancestors of the last, he searches for the
common progenitors, from which again two branches
started— on the one hand the ignoble branches of the
catarrhine species of apes, always remaining lower in

44 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

development, to which also belong the anthropomor-
phous apes, like the orang outang and gibbon in Asia,
the gorilla and chimpanzee in Africa; on the other
hand, that branch which represents the ascent of animals
to man.

The refining agencies which finally raise the animal
up to the man are essentially the same that on the lowest
scales of the pedigree have caused the development of
the lower organisms into the higher, namely : favor-
able individual variations, inheritsmce, acclimatization,
siii-vival of the fittest in the struggle for existence^ nat-
ural, and especially, sexual selection. These are, if not
the exclusive, still* the main agencies which finally led
the primate of the earthly creation upon the stage and
furnished him with his superior faculties. But it is par-
ticularly by means of, his social life, and of the forces
which determine, transmit, increase and ennoble the
various impulses and instincts promoting it, that nian
has become what he is. Through the need and faculty
of reciprocal help, through sexual selection — which of
course is a very essential factpr of social life— there
originated language, and reflection, and all the intel-
lectual qualities; and through these again originated
the moral qualities, which are most important in consti-
tuting the specific worth of man, and which were finally
developed into self-consciousness and free moral respon^
sibility.

But with the description of this attempt to explain
more in detail these specific characteristics of man, we
leave the ground of pure natural science and enter the
region of philosophy, in which we have to take up the

HISTORY OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 45

question again (in Book 11, Ch. I) at the same point
where we here leave it.

§ 2. The Followers of Darwin. — Ernst Hackel.

Darwin's theory soon found an enthusiastic corps of
followers — on the continent, and especially in Germany,
almost more than in his own country. The outlook into
an entirely new explanation of the origin of man, and
the probable use of this theory for attacks upon, faith,
in a Creator and Master of the world, called wide-spread
attention to it ; and the theory oj^ned to natural science
itself entirely new impulses and paths, and promised
the solution of many problems before which it had
hitherto been compelled to stand in silence. To be sure,
it threatened likewise to allure the mind from the slow
but sure ways of solid study to the entertaining but in-
secure and aimless paths of imagination and hypothesis.

Among all the German followers of Darwin who
adopted not only the idea of an origin of species through
descent and evolution, but also the explanation of evolu-
tion by natural selection, and extended it so as to make
the principle of selection of exclusive value, Ernst
Hackel occupies the most prominent rank.

In his "General Morphology," published in 1866,
and in his " Natural History of the Creation," the first
edition of which appeared in 1868, and finally iu his
" Antfiropogeny "* (why he does not say Anthropogony,
we are nowhere informed), 1874, this scientist brought the
new theory, which had been presented by Darwin in an
almost bewildering flood of details, into connection and
order, and, analyziug the powers active in natural selec-
tion, combined them into an entire system of laws. He

♦"Evolution of Man."

*a;-v:-. .* •- .•

46 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

at once drew the origin of man also into the course of
reasoning on the new theory, and sustained the theory
by the discovery of the inonera and other low organ-
isms of one cell, as well as by special investigations of
the calcareous sponges. For these labors, he was re-
warded by the warm and unreserved acknowledgment
which Darwin made to him in his work upon the origin
of man, which was published subsequently to the ''Nat-
ural History of the Creation." There Darwin says: "If
this work had appeared befoi'e ray essay had been writ-
ten, I should probably never have completed, it. Almost
all the conclusions at which I have arrived, I find con-
firmed by this naturalist, whose knowledge on many
points is much fuller than mine." HackeFs labors
rendered still greater service to the Darwinian theory
by dividing the organic world into three kingdoms: the
protista kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, and the ani-
mal kingdom,— a division which solves in a most simple
way the difficulty that was felt more and more of secur-
ing for the lowest organisms a place among the animals
or plants. He further aided the theory by leaving the
choice open to adopt either a uniform or multiform ped-
igree of the organisms and their kingdoms and classes,
and by treating each class under both points of view;
and finally, by fascinating experiments to bring before
us in detail the hypothetical pedigrees of all classes of
organisms from the protista kingdom up to man.

We will try to reproduce briefly the pedigree which
is of most interest — the hypothetical j?^fl?/<7/*^<? of nian.
Hackel divides it into twenty-two stages, eight of them ,.
belonging to the series of the invertebrates, and fourteen
to that of the vertebrates. On this ladder of twenty-

HISTORY OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 47

two rounds, he leads us from the lowest form of the
living l)eing, in slight and mostly plausible transitions,
continually higher and higher, up to man; and makes
our steps easy by mentioning at each stage, on the one
hand the corresponding state in the embryonic develop-
ment, on the other the still living, creature through
which, in his opinion, the former organisms of the cor-
responding round of the ladder are still represented,
and which'accortlingly has been a creature that remained
on its round, while other members of its family have
been developed up to man and to many other genera
and species.

He begins with the monera, the organisms of the
lowest form, discovered by himself, which have not so
much as the organic rank of a cell, but are only coipus-
cules of mucus, without kernel or external covering,
called by him cytod, and arising from an organic car-
bon formation. The lowest and most formless moneron
is the bathybius, discovered by Thomas Huxley, a net-
work of recticular mucus, which in the greatest depths
of the sea, as far down as 7,000 metres, covers stone,
fragments and other objects, but are also found in less
depths, in the Mediterranean Sea, for instance. From
the moneron he proceeds to the amoeba — a simple
cell, with a kernel, which still corresponds to the
egg of man in its first state. The third stage
is foraied by the communities of amoebae (synamoebse),
coiTespondirig to the mulberry-yolk in the first de-
velopment of the fecundated egg, and to some still
living heaps of amoebae. To the fourth stage he
assigns the planaea, corresponding to the embryonic de-
velopment df an albumen and the planula or ciliated

:^

• f :

4:8 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

larva. When these ciliated larvae are developed, they
contract themselves so as to form a cavity; and this fifth
stage — especially important for his theory — he calls
gastrsea. In this form, he says, the progaster is already
developed, and its wall is difierentiated for the first time
into an animal or dermal layer (ectoblast), and into
a vegetative or intestinal layer (hypoblast). At the
sixth stage, there branched off the prothelmis, or woniis,
with the fii-st formations of a nervous system, the sim-
plest organs of sense, the simplest organs for secretion
(kidneys) and generation (sexual organs), represented
tOKiay by ^he gliding worms or turbellaria; as the
seventh stage, the soft worms, as he called them at first
-T-tKe blood worms, or coelomati, as he describes them
in his " Anthropogeny " — a purely hypothetical stage,
on which a time body-cavity and blood ^vere formed; the
eighth stage are the chorda-animals with the beginning
of a spinal rod, corresponding to the larva of the ascid-
iee. At the ninth stage, called the skull-less animals
(^crania), and corresponding to the still living lancelet,
we enter the series of the vertebrates. The importance
of the eighth and ninth stages for the theory, we have
already pointed out in our remarks upon Darwin, p 43.
The tenth stage is formed by those low fishes in which
the spinal rod is differentiated into the skull— and the
vertebral-column, called the single-nostriled animals
(roonorrhini), and represented by the cyclostoma of to-
day (hag and lampreys). The eleventh stage is formed
by the primaeval fish or selachii (sharks); the twelfth
by the mud fish, of which there still live the protop-
terus in Africa, the _ lepidosiren in the tributaries of the
Agx^^u^ and the ceratodus in the swamps of Southern

HISTORY OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

49

Australia. On the thirteenth stage, there are the jriileil
amphibians (sozobranchia), proteus and axololl; on
the fourteenth, the tailed amphibians (sozura), newt
and salamander; on the fifteenth, the purely hypo-
thetical primaeval amniota or protamnia (amnion is
the name given to the chorion which surrounds the
germ-water and embryo of the three higher classes of
vertebrates) on the sixteenth, the primarj'^ mam-
mals (promammalia), to which the present monotremes
(ornithorhynchus and echidna) stand nearest; on the
seventeenth, the pouched animals or marsupialia; on the
eighteenth, the semi-ajies or prosimise (loris and maki);
on the nineteenth, the tailed apes, or menocerca
(nose-apes and slender-apes, or semnopithecus); on the
twentieth, the manJike apes (anthropoides) or tail-less
catarrhini (gorilla, chimpanzee, orang outang and
gibbon). And now we come to twenty-one — ape-like
men or speechless primaeval men (alali) — of whom we
are reminded to-day by the deaf and dumb, the cretins
and the microcephali; and number twenty-two is homp
sapienSy the man. The Australians and the Papuans
are supposed to be 'the only remaining representatives
of his firet stage-development. In like manner, Hackel
also gives us the stem-branches of all the types, classes
and orders of the organisms, and forms from them a
very acceptable hypothetical pedigree; or — if we prefer
to suppose a polyphyletic rather than a monophyletic
origin of species — hypothetical pedigrees of the whole
organic world.

The perspicuity and clearness of Hackel's deduc-
tions, the extent of his knowledge, and the singleness

^f his aim, to which he makes them all subservient, lend
4

50

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

to his works a great charm. But on the other hand we
dare not conceal that, even on the ground of explana-
tions belonging purely to natural history, the character
of hypothesis is often lost in that of arbitrariness and
of the undenionstrable. Even the unlearned in natural
science often enough get this impression when read-
ing his works, and will find it confirmed by scientists
who not only contradict his assertions in many cases, biit
disclose plain errors in his drawings — errors, Indeed,
exclusively in favor of the unity-hypothesis ; and in
other cases they show that drawings which are given as
pictures of the real, represent merely hypothetical opin-
ions. There is especially evident in his works an ex-
tremely strong tendency to impress on his hypotheses
the character of an established and proved fact, by giv-
ing them the alluring name of laws. Entire systems of
laws of the selection theory are produced, and all imag-
inable assertions are also immediately called laws. For
example, Huxley, in his anatomical investigations of
apes and men, arrives at the conclusion that the diflfer-
ences between the highest and the lowest apes are greater
than the differences between the highest apes and man.
This purely anatomical comparison, Hackel calls repeat-
edly "Huxley's Law." We are well aware that the
idea of law is capable of great extension in meaning,
and in that respect we can refer to nothing more in-
structive than the well-meditated inquiry upon this idea
in the '' Reign of Law" of the Duke of Argyll (London,
Strahan & Co.). But if we may venture to call purely,
anatomical comparisons of this nature laws^ such a use
of language destroys all logical reasoning; and this
mistake appears again in HackePs philosophic discus-

. ' . . . .\ . • .• ., ■

HISTORY OF TUK DARWINIAN THEORIES. 51-

sions, of which we shall have to speak hereafter. We
shall have to refer also hereafter to an additional embel-
lishment, which Hackel thinks himself obliged to give
to his works — namely, that he makes on every occasion
the strongest attacks upon faith in a personal God, a
Creator and Lord of the world ; that he traces all the
motives of human action to self-interest : that he denies
the liberty of man and the moral system of the world ;
that he makes consent to his view of things the criterion
of the intellectual development of a man ; and that he
thinks to render a service to civilization by such a view
of the world and of. ethics.

In the consequent carrying out of the selection prin-
ciple as the satisfactory key in explaining the origin of
all species and also of man, Hackel is indeed, in
spite of the approval of his works by the British master,
more Darwinian than Darwin himself, who expressly
refuses to give exclusive value to this theory of expla-
nation. Hence there are among scientists only a few
who go with him to this extent. In Germany, aside
from the materialists, we only know of Seidlitz and
Oskar Schmidt — who in the thirteenth volume of the "In-
ternational Scientific Series" treats of ''The Theorvof
Descent and Darwinism, " and advocates not only the
autocracy of the selection theory, but also all the mon-
istic and atheistic consequences which are deduced from
it. Perhaps Gustav Jager, Schleiden, Bernhard Cotta
— at least judging from their earlier publications — should
be mentioned as followers of the pure selection theory ;
although they do not all draw from it the before-men-
tioned philosophic consequences. On the other hand,
the number of those is very great who, although inspired

i^i^^^^

j9T

52 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

by Darwin to adopt the idea of an origin of species
through descent and evolution, yet have more or less
modified, laid aside, or entirely refused the very doc-
trine which is especially hew in Darwin's theory — the
selection theory. In the following section we shall
briefly give an account of them.

§ 3. Modifications of the Theory — MorizWagner. Wigand.

One of the most prominent objections to the selection
theory, which strikes us at once from tlie standpoint of
natural history, is the following: The varieties of a
domesticated species, obtained by artificial breeding, are
lost,, and return to the original wild form of the species
as soon as they are crossed long enough with other vari-
eties or are left to themselves and to the crossing with
individuals of the original form of tlieir species; and
hence we can not see how individual characteristics, even
if favorable to the individual, will not be lost again by
the crossing which is inevitable in a state of nature, with
such individuals as do not possess those characteristics.
Besides, it is an established fact, confirmed by all our
observations stretching over thousands of years, that
the characteristics of sj^cies are preserved in spite of
all individual modifications, and that this preservation of
the characteristics of species has its cause essentially in
the free crossing of individuals.

This objection induced Moriz Wagner to take up
again an idea already expressed by Leopold von Buch,
and to complete the principle of a selection through nat-
ural breeding by another, and partly, indeed, to sup-
plant it by the principle of isolation hy migration.
Isolated individuals, who, from any reason naturally to

>.

/'?iy/:> '.:/''•■ * ■ ; ■ . ■ /^ -r. \ • ■■• >;

HISTORY OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 53

be accounted fof, leave the mass of their fellows, cap
from the very consequence of this isolation transmit to
their offspring common individual characteristics which
are not destroyed again by the crossing with other indi-
viduals. They will especially fix and transmit these in-
dividual characteristics, when they are favorable to them
for the conditions of existence in their new place of liv^
ing, and these individual characteristics will so much
the more be increased and developed in a direction
favorable to the subsistence of the individuals in their
new place of living, as there are more closely connected
with this isolation variations in the conditions of exist-
ence, in climate, geographical surroundings, food, and
so on. He very attractively applies this theory also to
the explanation of the origin of man. Acconling to his
opinion, even the nearest animal progenitors of man
were isolated, and the isolating power was the rise of
the great mountains of the Old World, which took place
previous to the glacial period. One pair, or perhaps
a few pairs, of those progenitors were driven away from
the luxurious climate of the torrid zone to the northern
half of the globe, and found their return cut off by gla-
ciers and high mountains; in place of a comfortable life
on the trees, necessity urged them to gain support from
conditions less favorable to existence, and necessity,
this mother of so many virtues and achievements, finally
made man what he is. In following out these ideas,
Moriz Wagner has gradually and mora and more decid-
edly given up the selection theory, and opposed it by
sharp criticisms.

This migration or isolation theory dX^^o found a degree
of favor, but subordinate in its nature. For it

.Cm. ■* *^~ ■■•-■'■■... ■ i ■ ■

54

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

can not and will not pretend to solve the main prob-
lems. It only tries to explain how the individual varia-
tions, already in existence, might have been preserved
and perhaps increased, and how new conditions of exist-
ence could have roused latent powers ; but not how
these variations and these powers originated. , Just as
little is the selection theory able to explain this;
but it pretends to do it, and hence we can easily com-
prehend how during the last few years a constantly in-
Creasing number of voices, and more important ones, j-
have been raised against the selection theory. This
opposition came not only from those who — like
Agassiz, Barrande, Emil Blanchard, Escher von der
Linth, Goppert, Giebel, Sir Roderick Murchison, Pfaff,
and others — directly reject each and every idea of de-
scent on account of the difficulty in defending the selec-
tion theory; or who — like Karl Ernst von Ba«r,* (the

*It was only when the manuscript of this work was nearly finished
and the first part of it had gone to the press, that the author received
the second part of K. E. von Baer's "* Stxidien, aus dem Gebteteder
NdiunoissemcJiaften" (Studies in the Realm of Natural Sciences)".
It contains another essay on teleology, ** Ueber Zielstrebigkeit in den
organi8c)ien Kd'rperti in^)esondere" and a treatise on Darwin's doc-
trine, •• Ueber Darwin's Lehre" which Baer had promised long ago
and which the public had anxiously awaited. It is no little satisfac-
tion to find that I, from my modest premises, reached results regard-
ing the naturo philosophical problems and their weight in the reli-
gious realm which so fully harmonize with the views of this fiiTSt au-
thority in the realm of the history of development. I shall still have
occasion here and there to avail myself of a study of this latest and
most important publication upon the question of Darwinism, and
shall confine myself here to the remark that von Baer, although he
rejects the selection theory and the superficial treatment of the princi-
ple of evolution on the part of matei-ialists, is by no means disinclined
to the idea of the origin of species through descent, whether in grad-

•A.,.

K.

c 1

^ ■' -"

- . v»-

HISTOKY OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 55

pioneer in the region of the history of individual devel-
opment), like Oskar Fraas, Griesebach, Sandberger, and
others — generally take a more reserv^ed and neutral posi-
tion, because of the uncertaintv of the facts and the
inaccessibility of the problems; but it comes especially
from those scientists who are inclined to adopt an origin
of species through descent and even through develop-
ment, yet refuse to explain it by the selection principle,
and look for the essential cause of the develop-
ment in the organisms themselves, without claim-
insr to have themselves found these causes. Amonoj
the most prominent advocates of this view, we
may name the late Sir Charles Lyell, Mivart, and Rich-

ual development or in leaps; and that in this respect he could no
longer be counted among the advocates of the group above referred
to, but among those which we mention farther on, had he not re-
jK'atedly and forcibly confessed, with a modesty worthy of acknowl-
edgment, his total ignorance concerning the manner in wliich certain
forms of life, especially the higher ones, originated. The origin of
higher species without the supposition of a descent is to him unex-
plaiuable, because the individuals of these species are, in their first
development of life, so deixjndent on the mother. Furthermore, he
points out the fact that in early periods of the earth the organic form-
ing power which ruled, must have been a higher one than it is at the
present time; in like manner as the first period in the embryonic de-
velopment of individuals is to-day the most productive. This higher
power of organization, he says, could consist in a higher power of
changing organisms into new species, as well as in a higher power of
producing new species through primitive generation; or it could con-
sist in both. In general, there is no reason to suppose that primi-
tive generations which took place at the first origination of life on
earth, could not have been repeated later and oftener. The nearer a
a generation was to these individuals originated through primitive gen-
eration, the greater was undoubtedly its flexibility and changeable-
ness ; the farther, the greater the fixity of type.

...•-■■*•

56 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

ard Owen, in England; and in Germany, Alexander
Bnuui, Ecker, Gegenbaur, Oswald Heer, W. His,
Nageli, Rutimeyer, Schaaffliausen, Virchow, Karl Vogt,
A. W. Volkmann, Weismann, Zittel, and here also Mo-
riz Wagner, and among the philosophers, Eduard von
Hartnumn. Many of these men are but little aware of
the difference between the two questions : whether, on the
one hand, the adoption of the origin of species through
descent does not of itself involve the idea of a gradual
development of one species from another, almost unob-
servable in its single steps ; or, on the other hand,
whether a descent of species through heterogenetic gen-
eration in leaps and through a metamorphosis of the
germs, could be imagined. They consider descent and
evolution as identical ; and this identification is explain-
able so long as we are not in a condition to come nearer
to the eventual causes of the supposed variation of
species. But men are not wanting who put these ques-
tions clearly and plainly, and separate them distinctly
from one another. Among them we may mention K. E.
von Baer, Ed. von Hartmann and Wigaud; of the latter
we will have occasion to speak more in detail hereafter.
Among them we find also scientists who answer the
question in the sense of a new-modeling of the species,
of a heterogenetic generation, and of a metamorphosis
of germs. To this class belong especially Oswald Heer —
'' Urwelt der Schweitz '' (''Antediluvian World in Switz-
erland ''), Zurich, 1865, p. 590-604; KoUiker— "Ueber die
Darwin'sche Schopfungstheorie," (''Darwin's Theory
of Creation"), Leipzig, 1864; '^Moi-phologie und Ent-
wicklungeschichte des Pennatulidenstammes nebst allge-
meinen Betrachtungen zur Descendenzlehre," ("Mor-

HISTORY OF, THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 57

phology and History of the Development of the Stem of
the PennatulidiBe, together *with General Remarks on the
Descent Theory"), Frankfurt^ 1872; and HehirichBaum-
gartner — " Natur und Gott" ("Nature and God"),
Leipzig, Broekhaus, 1870. Heer has introduced into
scientific language the term "new-modeling of the
s^Micies," Kolliker that of a "heterogenetic generation,"
and Baumgailner that of a " transmutation of the types
through a metamorphosis of germs." Baeralso is not
averse to adopting the latter.

The botanist, Albert Wigand, of Marburg, takes a
peculiar position. On one hand, the observation of the
relationship of organic beings with one another leads
him to adopt a common genealogy, a descent ; on the
other, the objections to adopting a descent of the species
one from another appear to him insurmountable. In the
first place, he sees all the species everywhere strictly
limited — altliough in the second volume of his work,
which appeared after the preceding lines were written,
he again warns against a one-sided emphasizing of the
invariability of species. In the second place, he sees so
clearly, through the whole organic world, the differ-
ences, nay, the contrasts, of the species, in their build-
ing-plan, in the numbers and conditions and positions of
their parts, and in their mode of development, that it
appears to him impossible to assume in the perfected
organism a pi-oduction of germs which in a course of
generations, by a process even as gradual as possible,
would grow into such an entirely new phenomenon as a
new, even closely related, species would be. But if we
adopt the theory of a heterogeneiic generation, we
explain by it the variety but not the similarity of species ;

68 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

for a heterogenetic generation would In the new species
make everything different from the old one — a conclu-
sion,- the necessity of which it would be difficult to show.
For these reasons, he refers the descent of the organic
beings, not to the series of the species, with their indi-
viduals already specified and defined, but to the series
oi primordial cdls Wving free in the water. The earli-
est primordial cells represented only the common char-
acter of the whole orgwaic worlds and out of them the
primordial cells of the aninxal and those of the vegetd-
hie kingdom were produced by dividing the cells; so that
the first ones embi*aced only the general arid primitive
characteristics of the whole animal, the last ones those
of the whole vegetable kingdom. Out of these primor-
dial cells of the two kingdoms, those of the m/iin types
proceeded— (for instance, the primordial cells of the radi-
ated animals, the vertebrates, etc., the gymnosperms,
the angiosperms, etc.); out of them those of the (?^a55<^
— (for instance, the mammalia, the dicotyledons ) ;
out of them those of the orders — (for instance, the beasts
of prey, rosifloroe) ; out of them those of the families
(canina, rosacese); out of them those of the genus {c2imSy
rosa); and out of them those of the s^^(?/ec<? (canis lupus,
rosa, canina). Only when the primordial cells of the
species had been produced, were they developed into
finished representatives of the species; and when once
these primordial cells of the species^ had been developed
into finished and full-grown individuals of the species,
their transmission took place in the manner well known
to us. Wigand published his criticism of the Darwinian
Theories in his larger work, "Der Darwinismus und die
Naturforschung Newtons und Cuviers," ("Darwinism

HISTOKY OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 59

and the Natural Science of Newton and Cuvier"), Braun-
schweig, Vieweg, Vol. I, 1874, Vol. II., 1876, and his
own attempt at explanation in a smaller lx)ok, published
at the same place in 1872: " Die Genealogie der Urzel-
len als Losung des Descendenzproblems oder die Ent-
stehung der Af ten ohne natUrliche Zuchtwahl" ("Gene-
alogy of the Primordial Cells as a Solution of the
Problem of Descent ; or the Origin of Species without
Natural Selection").

Whether this geneaZogy of the primordial cells found
any followers, we do not know. None of the hypoth-
eses thus far mentioned are so very far from having
analogies in experience. The idea of a first develop-
ment of the higher organisms out of then* specific pri-
mordial cell, through all kinds of conditions of larvae
up to the finished form, demands of us the acceptance
of monstrous improbabilities — (thinli:, for example, of
the first men, who, originating from a human primor-
dial cell, grow in different metamorphoses of larvae, first
in the water and then on the land, until they appear as
finished men). Moreover, the hypothesis, in claiming
that a heterogenetic generation of one species from
another must necessarily nullify all similarity between
the organism of the child and that of the mother, is so
little convincing, and shows — in the necessity of con-
ceiving the universal type of organisms, the type of
kingdoms, of main types, of classes, of orders, of fam-
ilies, of genera, and of species, as but individuijil exist-
ences which, in the form of cells and before the existence
of the developed species, partly through many thous-
ands of years, lead a real empiric and concrete life —
such an abstract sj^nthetical construction of nature, that

^ I -----

60 •

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

we are not astonished that the theory of the genealogy
of primordial cells stands almost alone. On the other
hand, Wigand's larger critical work rendered great ser-
vice in clearing up the problems. It is true, his judg-
ment appeai*s in many single cases not at all convincing,
' since he often enough fights his advei-saries with
sophisms and deduces from the views of Darwin and
Hackel conclusions to which they certainly do not lead.
But, in the majority of cases, his work is full of real con-
vincing power, and with the breadth of its philosophical
view and with the sharpness of its definitions, as well as
witli its abundance of philosophic and especially botan-
ical teachings and their ingenious application, it is direct-
ly destructive to the use of the selection theory as the
principal key to the solution of the problems. Eduard
von Hartmann describes the work in his publication,
" Wabrheit und Irrthum im Darwinismus," ('' Truth and
Error in Darwinism"), as a mile-stone which marks the
limits where Darwinism as such passed the summit of its
influence in Germany.

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 61

CHAPTER in.

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

§ 1. The Theory of JDeacent.

The historical retrospect of the Darwinian theories,
from their purely scientific side, leads us of itself to a
critical review of their, present state. We can briefly
indicate in advance the result to which it will lead us,
viz.: that the descent theory has gained, the selection
theory has lost ground, -the theory of development oscil-
lates between both ; but that all three theories have
not yet passed beyond the rank of hypotheses, although
they have very unequal hypothetical value. We can
best arrange our review by beginning with that theory
which is the most common, and which perhaps may
still have value when both the others find their value
diminished or lost: the theory of descent From that
we proceed to the theory df evolution^ and from this
to that of selection.

The theory of descent is indeed at first sight ex-
ceedingly plausible, and will probably always be the
directive for all future investigations as to the origin of
species. The organic species show, besides the great
variety of their characteristics and the unchangeable
nature of these characteristics, many other qualities
which are common to them; and these common charac-
teristics are precisely those which are most essential.

>v-?> *■ '•

62 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN. .

Moreover the higher the structure of the organisms
which are differentiated, the more numerous and more
valuable will become the evidences of similarity, and
the greater also will be their distance from the inorganic
and from the lowest organisms of their class, their type,
or their kingdom. For instance, rose and apple-tree,
elder and ash, wolf and dog, goat and sheep, ape and
man, are not only a great deal farther removed from the
mode of existence of inorganic bodies than the algse,
the monera, and other low organisms, but they have
also, in spite of the great interval which separates them
from one another and especially which separates man
from every animal, much more numerous and important
points of contact than, for instance, two families or gen-
era of algse or of mosses, of polyps or of infusoria, have
among one another. Now our imagination refuses to
accept the theory that the Creator, or nature, or what-
ever we wish to call the principle generating the species,
in producing the new species, laid aside all those points
of contact which are continually becoming more numer-
ous and more important, and produced instead, by ever
widening leaps, the new and higher species from the
inorganic, which lies farther and farther from them. On
the other hand, the theory appears to us all the more
plausible, that every new species came into existence on
that stage which is the most nearly related to it, and
which was already in existence. If we add further,
that the two old maxims of the natural scientists,
(mine vivum ex ovo and omne ovum ex ovario^ have not
been invalidated, in spite of all the searching for a gen-
eratio ceqidvocay and that, even if the origination of the
lowest organisms out of the inorganic could in future be

•4 .

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 63

proved, yet the truth of these maxims for all the higher
organized individuals is established as a fact without
exception. Moreover, if we take into consideration the
fact that we can not at all imagine either the origin or
the first development of a higher animal or a human
organism without the protecting integument and the
nourishing help of a mother's womb, we may venture
to say that each and every attempt to render the ori-
gin of the first individuals of the higher species conceiv-
able, leads of necessity to the descent theory. We have
either to reject, once for all, such an attempt, as an un-
scientific playing with impossibilities, or to accept the
idea of descent. It is certainly the lasting merit of
Darwin, even if his whole stiiicture of proofs should in
the course of time show itself weak, that he not only
had the courage (as others had before him), but also
inspired scientists with the courage to trace the idea of
a descent of species in a scientific way.

To be sure, so long as we have no other proof of the
descent theory than the circumstance that we can imag-
ine it, it will continue to be nothing more than an inge-
nious hypothesis. We have, therefore, to look to the
realm of nature for more direct proofs; and we are
there furnished with them. They are presented to
us by geology in connection with the botanical and zoo-
logical systems, by geology in connection with vegetable
and animal geography, by comparative anatomy, and
by the history of the embryonic development of ani-
mals.

Oeology finds in the strata of the crust of the globe
a large number of extinct plants and animals of extraor-
dinary variety; but all of them, however much they

ifeX;9hs?*.->^/?-> :.•.■•■:-.

64 THE THEORIES OF DAfeWlN.

may differ from the organisms of to-day, are coaipletely
in harmony with the botanical and zoological (systems in
which we divide the still living organisms. Not only
have by far the most of the now extinct genera and
species their family and stem-companions, and many
even their genem and species companions, in the living
workl, but also those genem whose nearer relations are
now extinct — as, for instance, the club-moss-trees, the
trilobites, the ammonites, the belemnites, the sauria,
the nummulites, — ^show still a very perceptible relation-
ship with living genera, and can be quite accurately in-
cluded in the botanical and zoological systems; nay,
they even fill up gaps in it The anatomical, mor-
phological, and, so far as we can judge, the physio-
logical and biological relationship of the fossil with living
organisms, is so great and comprehensive that in the
present state of science a systematic botany or zoology,
that should only treat of the fossils or of living organ-
isms alone, would be imperfect. But the relationship of
the fossil organisms with the natural systems of botany
and zoology is apparent not only in this respect, but
also in the fact that the single species during the long
periods of time which are shown by geology to have
elapsed, came into existence in a series, which again
pretty closely corresponds to the natural system of the
organic kingdoms; and that the fossil representatives of
all classes and families, the nearer they come to the pres-
ent world, appear the inore nearly related to the liv-
ing organisms, so that the fauna and flora of the ante-
htiman time are lost in those of the human period by
tnmsitions gliding from the one to the other. For in-
stance, in th^ Miocene fbimation of the tertiary epoch

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 65

we find thirty per cent, of species still living to-day; in
the Pliocene, even sixty to eighty per cent, and toward
its end even about ninety-six per cent, of species which
are identical with those now living.

A brief glance may still more closely illustrate this
analogy between the geological series and the organic
systems. Plants and animals seem to have appeared
nearly at the same time, and at first in the form of the
very lowest organisms. The earliest plants found by
geology belong also to the lowest stage of the vegetable
kingdom; they are the algee. They are followed again
by higher cryptogamous plants, especially ferns and
club-mosses. Only at a later period flowering plants
appear, among them being fii*st the plants with naked
seeds standing lower in the system^ as the cy cad-trees and
pine-forests; later, those with enclosed seeds, among
them being again first the monocotyledons, last the
dicotyledons, — all of them precisely corresponding to
the botanical system. The same thing is true in the
animal kingdom. If the eozoon Canadense, found in
the laurentian slate of the Cambrian formation in North
America, is really an organism and not an inorganic
form, the earliest vestiges of animal life we can find are
the rhizopodes or foraminifera; and these organisms
belong to the lowest stage of life — to that stage which
forms a kind of undeveloped intermediate member be-
tween the vegetable and animal kingdom, HackePs
kingdom of the protista. The next oldest animal or-
ganisms found in the Cambrian formation are the zoo-
phytes, and immediately above them the moUusca and
the Crustacea. In the following Silurian period we find
corab, radita, worms, moUusca, and Crustacea, ia
5

• -- ^

f : V "

V.f

\^-'J

r - W ■ -

■ij^y

■<■ ■

tJG THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

gi'eat number, also all the main-types of the inverte-
brates; and in the highest Silurian strata there are also to
be found representatives of the lowest class of verte-
brates, of fish, but still of very low organization
and little difierentiated. That the §ve main-types of
the invertebrates seem to have appeared quite contem-
poraneously, yet that the zoophytes really appeared first,
does not contradict the before-mentioned law of a pro-
gress in the appearance of the organisms from the lower
to the higher. For in the zoological system also these
main-types of the invertebrates do not stand one above
the other, but by the side of each other: at most, the
radiata, the worms, the mollusca, and the articulata,
take their places above the zoophytes. Only within
the main-types, in the classes, orders, etc., do differ-
ences in rank take effect; and even here, not without
exception. What difference in rank, for instance, is
there between an oyster and a cuttle-fish? between a
cochineal and a bee or ant ? and yet the first two belong
to one and the same type — the type of mollusca; and
the last three to one and the same class — ^the class of in-
sects. The vertebrates rank decidedly above the
invertebrates; and in. a manner wholly corresponding
to this, the vertebrates also appear after the in-
vertebrates. Just as decidedly as to their rank, the
main classes of the vertebrates do not stand beside, but
above one another: above the fish stand the amphibia,
above them the reptiles, next the birds, and above them
the mammalia. To this series of succession also the
geological facts seem to correspond pretty closely; only
long after the fish do the first amphibia and reptilia ap-
pear-^-although it can not yet be decided which of these

• ' • ' . ■ ■••if •«

PRE8ENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 67

two classes has left its earliest traces. If the inter-
pretation of the gigantic foot-steps in the colored sand-
stone of North America, as belonging to the cursorial
birds, is correct, the first appearance of birds falls in
the time between the reptilia and mammalia; otherwise
the first mammalia would have appeared before the first
birds. For if we find the first real bones of birds only
in the Jura and in the Chalk-formation, they are birds
with tail-spines ^nd with teeth in the beak — hence still
related to the reptilia or the sauria. The first traces of
mammalia to be found in the Upper Keuper formation,
and in the Jura, belong to the order of opossums or
marsupialia; i. ^., to that order which (excepting the
echidna and the ornithorhynchus that, as so-called
monotremeta, stand the very lowest in the class of the
mammalia, but are very scarce) oc/Cupies the lowest
stage among the multitude of mammalia. Only after
them do the higher orders of mammalia appear; and last
of all organisms, man.

K we follow more in detail the appearance of the
single organisms, some remarkable modifications show
themselves in the course of their appearance and growth.
We have heretofore mentioned the possibility of the ap-
pearance of the mammalia before the bird. Another
fact which deserves attention is, that frequently the lowest
representatives of a class or an order do not at first appear
where the highest representatives of the next lower class
or order are in existence, but with lower representatives
of a preceding class or order, viz. : such representatives
of the same as are still less differentiated and unite in
liiemselves comparatively still more generic and less
specific characteristics — ^as for instance, the lowest and

68 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

earliest amphibia, which do not appear at the same time
' and place with the most highly organized fishes, but
with fishes of still lower organization. Moreover many
groups of organisms show in earlier geological periods
a richness of development from which they have now
fallen far. away. For instance, among the mammalia
the pachydermata, among the reptilia the salamander
and newt, among the articulata the cephalopoda, are at
present remarkably reduced; — compare with the legions
of ammonites and belemnites of the secondary period
the small number of nautilus and cuttle-fish of the seas
at the present day. A similar fortune was experienced
by the ferns and club-mosses which formed whole forests
in the carboniferous period. Other groups which once
played a great rSle^ are now wholly extinct; for instance,
the trilobites of the primary, the sauria of the second-
ary, the nummulites of the tertiary periods. Now, all
these modifications of geological progress would entirely
correspond to the idea of a pedigree to which the descent
theory traces back the whole abundance of forms of
organisms. As soon as we seriously accept the idea of
a pedigree, each of the two organic kingdoms would
throughout form for its classes and species not only one
single straight line of descent, but a tree, the branches
of which are again ramified in a manifold way; a tree on
which single branches — ^as perhaps that of the class of
birds — ^may leave the main-stem or a main-branch, pos-
sibly being a branch destined to a higher development,
and on that account held back in the process of develop-
ment; a tree, finally, on which also branches and twigs
cian wholly or partly die off, as those of the extinct or
reduced groups of organisms.

•>:

".

• -^s

„

.-£?

. . ..'•

>■?'

PRESENT STATE OF THE DABWINIAN THEORIES. 69

From the point where the geological formations ap-
proach the pi'esent time, plcmt and animal geography
also assists geology in increasing the weight of tlie rea-
sons for an origin of organisms through descent. With
the tertiary period, the fauna and flora of the globe,
which in former periods had a nearly uniform character
all over the earth and showed no climatic diflferences,
begin to separate according to climate, zones, and great-
er continents. This separation becomes distinctly evi-
dent in the middle tertiary formations, the Miocene, and
much more distinctly in the higher tertiary formations,
the Pliocene. The animals, especially the higher verte-
brates, of the Pliocene formation on each conti-
nent or each larger group of islands, correspond very
closely to the now living animals of the same geograph-
ical limit, with the exception of being generally of a
much larger size. The Pliocene animal world of mam-
malia of the three old continents, for instance, corre-
sponds exactly, through all its orders, to the present
fauna of Europe, Asia and Africa; and that on an aver-
age it was built up more stupendously than that of
to-day, we can see from the cave-bear and the mammoth.
South America is the home of a peculiar order of
mammalia — of the edentata, to which belong the sloth,
the armadillo, and the like. All its predecessors are to be
found also in the Pliocene strata of South America, and
only there; and mostly in gigantic, but otherwise com-
pletely related, forms. New Zealand has no indigenous
mammalia, but in their place great cursorial birds with
but rudimentaiy wings. Exactly the same thing is found
by geology in its tertiary and post-tertiary strata : no-
where a mammal, but gigantic birds with rudimentary

^ • ■ • ■ 1 - V

3^1%^* :• -^r: ^ . 'T- --^ :•'

r,^ j. ' . \m i\ .. r - — : • '>• -• •■- - . -5

J • -^ ■ -- .... - . •

^ »■ . _ ■_ • J. -

70

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

wings, down to the dinornis, which probably died out
in man's time. New Holland has merely marsupial and
some monotrematous, but no placental, mammalia; even
its tertiary sti*ata give no placental mammalia, but mar-
supialia, in analogy with all living genera, herbivorous,
and carnivorous. Indeed, the analogy goes so far that
the same line which through the Indian Archipelago
separates the present Australian animal and plant world
from the Asiatic, .forms also the separating line for the
geological zones of the Pliocene epoch. All these are ^
facts which render quite inevitable the idea of an origin
of the higher organic species of to-day through descent.
But still, from another side, animal geography,
though it does not yet speak for a common pedigree of the
whole animal world, as the facts just mentioned also do
not, still at least speaks for a descent of related, though
at present separated, genera and species from common '
foi'efathers. The continents of the Old and New World
are so cbnstructed that toward the North Pole they ap-
proach one another very closely, and toward the South
Pole they withdraw from one another. Without
doubt there existed in the North, through long periods
of time, a land-connection of America with Asia and
with Europe. Now, both continents have their more or
less characteristic animal world, and these characteris-
tics are distributed over the two halves of the fflobe in
the following extremely remarkable way: The fauna of
the Old and the New World, in those groups of animal
jgenera which live only in the warmer or tropic zones
or only south of the equator, and have no associates
of genera or families in the higher North, is in each
hemisphere entirely characteristic, and differs in a

;•-:.>

*»;.>;

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 71

marked way from the fauna of the other half of the
globe. For instance, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus,
the giraffe, the antelope with undivided horns, the hedge-
hog, the mole proper, are only inhabitants of the Old
World, whence also the horse originally came, the
striped ones in Africa and the non-striped in Asia ; on
the other hand, the lemur, the ant-eater, the armadillo,
and others, are limited to South America. The apes of
the Old World have five molar teeth on each side of the
jaw, narrow noses, tails usually short and nevei' prehen-
sile, and fleshy protuberances for sitting ; the apes
of the New World have six molar teeth, flat noses, and
long prehensile tails. And on the contrary, where
closely related species are found on both parts of the
globe, they belong only to genera of which single spe-
cies live or have lived in the far North ; as, for instance,
the rein-deer, still common to the Old and the New
World in this very North which once formed a bridge
between the two halves of the earth. The same is true
in regard to cattle, the deer, the cat, the dog, the hare.
Similar facts can also be shown of other animal classes.
The farther the different species of these genera with-
draw from the North Pole, the greater become the differ-
ences between the species on the one half of the globe
and the analogous species of the other. Compare on
this point K. E. von Baer's " Studien aus dem Gebiete
der Naturwissenchaften, iiber Darwin's Lehre," (*' Studies
from the Realm of Natural Science upon Darwin's
Teachings"), p. 356 f. If we add, further, the before
mentioned fact, that those genera which are exclusively
peculiai: to one or the other continent, have their related
predecessors in the tertiary strata of these continents,

. \^

72 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

the hypothesis of a separate origin for each single
species, without genealogical connection with the anato-
mically and physiologically related species, becomes
neither more nor less than a scientific impossibility.

Moreover, there are several facts of comparative
anatomy which have long been the joy of all zoologists
and have rewarded the toilsome labors of detailed inves-
tigations by a delightful view over the whole realm of
the organic world, but which find a scientific explanation
only in the descent theory. They are the homology of
tlce organs^ and to a certain degree also the so-called
rudimentary organs. By homology of organs we
mean the fact that within one and the same class-group
of organisms all the organs, and especially the organs
in their most solid constituents, in the skeleton, are built
after one and the same fundamental plan, and therefore are
even in their most widely separated modifications varied
after this one and the sjune plan. This is especially
true of the vertebne and the limbs. This homology goes
so far within one class, particularly within the class of
mammalia, that, for instance, the hands and feet of man,
the hands of the ape, the paws of the beast of prey, the
hoof of the horse and of the ox, the paws of the mole,
the fins of the seal and of the whale, the wing-mem-
branes of the flying-squirrel, correspond to one another
in their smallest parts and ossicles, and can all be regis-
tered with the same numbers and letters ; i. ^., they are
homologous to one another even to the minutest detail.
The ideal plan and connection in the organisms, disclosed
by these facts, and long ago acknowledged and admired,
receives at the same time its simple m/iterial basis
through the acceptance of a common descent.

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 73

A similar relation is observed in rudimentary organs.

Many of them, as the nipples of males, point, if not
to a common descent from a lower form, at least to a
common plan of the sexes. But when the embryo of
the whale still has its teeth in the jaw, the grown up
whale its hip-bones, when the eye of man still has its
winking membrane, the ear and many portions of the
the skin their rudimentary muscles of motion, the end
of the vertebral column its rudimentary tail, the intes-
tinal canal its blind intestine ; when sightless animals,
living in the dark, still have their rudinaentary eyes,
blind worms their shoulder-blades ; when in like manner
the plants, especially in their parts of fecundation, show
in great number such rudimentary organs as are entirely
useless for the functions of life, but which are never
misleading in determining their relationship with other
plants: — how simply are all these facts explained by the
descent theory, how not at all without it !

Finally, if we now mention the history of the de-
velopment of anhnals^ we shall have to postpone to the
next section the consideration of the most essential facts
furnished by this science ; for the individual develop-
ment of animals is a process which could speak not
only for a descent of the species, but also for a descent
of them through gradual development. But where, as
in the present section, we treat the descent theory apart
from the evolution theory, we have also to think of the
possibility that the species or groups of species are not
originated through gradual development, but nevertheless
do originate through descent — namely, in leaps through
metamorphosis of germs or a heterogenetic generation ;
and for such an idea we find confirmation in the observa-

■ <

JLL- — ■- •

^ir»'A».^ -1 Ij.-^. . .^.

74 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

tion of the history, of development of animals, which we
call clum^e of generation or metagenesis. * By this is meant
.the following phenomenon : Certain animals, as the
salpa and doliolum of the order of the tunicata, as well
as certain mites and many tape-worms, produce ofl-
spring which are wholly dissimilar to the mother
stock. These offspring have the capacity of reproduc-
ing themselves — if not by sexual means, as at the first
generation, still by the formation of sprouts ; and it is
Only the animals originated by the second generation
(with many species, even those by the third) which return
again to the form of the firet generation. The plant-lice
transmit themselves through six, seven, even ten genera-
tions by means of sprouts, until a generation appears
which lays eggs. Now it is indeed time that the change
of generation forms a circle in which the form of the
last generation always returns to that of the first, and
therefore leaves the species, as species, wholly unchanged.
But it is nevertheless a process which shows that the
natural law of an identity between genemtor and pro-
duct, observed in other relations, is not without excep-
tion ; and if we once have reason to suppose that the
generation of new species took place in past periods of
the globe, but has ceased in the present, such processes
in the single period open to our direct observation^ —
namely, the present (in which, however, according to our
knowledge, the species remain constant) — ^are neverthe-

* After the completion of this manuscript, tlie author found that
K. E. von Baer, in his treatise upon Darwin's doctrine, pays especial
attention to the change of generation and also to the metamorphosis
of plants and aniipala in exactly Uie same sense and reaches the same
CQ^Qclusion.

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 76

It

less hints worthy of notice. For they refer us to ways
in which in those former times, when certainly new
species did originate, this formation of species might
possibly have taken place.

This consideration leads us to treat of the main ob-
jection raised to every descent theory: namely, that
never yet has the origin of one species from another
been observed, but that, on the contrary, all species — so
far as our experience goes, stretching over thousands of
years — remain constant. We will give no weight to the
fact that the constancy of species seems by no means to
be absolutely without exception; for on the whole, they
certainly remain constant. The only example which
goes to prove such an evolution of species as taking
place to-day — viz : the natural history of sponges —
seems not to have this bearing. The transitions of form,
proven by O. Schmidt in the siliceous sponges and by
Hackel in the chalk-sponges, seem to show, not the gen-
etic coming forth of a new species put of another, and
especially not the evolution of a higher species out of a
lower, but rather the uncertainty of the idea of species
in general and the worthlessness of the skeleton-forms,
for this idea, in such low organizations as the sponges.
But that objection already loses its chief force from the
consideration that we have not only never observed the
origin of one species from another, but never even the
origin of a species itself; and that nevertheless all spe-
cies have successively originated in time. If we, there-
fore, are not able to observe directly their origination,
we have a right to make all possible attempts at
approaching, the knowledge of it in an indirect way.
But we see this objection invalidated by still another

>-^;-:

C\J^^- -

I

■

»?■• f r^ ■

\

/

<-■•• • ..

'..•:L-a--;

'

-*

*if5tf ^l£5* • ■

■A

;

. '

^^^nca&iv * *

- -. fc

*

yaBBaJ!^

•* ■■ .

> " .

•irt. "^ ■"

,i

HHI

76 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

fact. From all observatioDs, it seems to be evident
that those agencies which originated the species in gen-
eral have ceased since man appeared. Now this fact is
inconvenient for all those who, on metaphysical grounds,
i*eject aim and pui*pose in the world and accept an aim-
less motion in the universe, a circle in which only identi-
cal powers are ever active to all eternity. From this
standpoint, the scientists cannot, except by very artificial
hyix)theses, escape the conclusion that, if new species
once originated through descent, new species ought still
to originate thi-ough descent. In like manner, it is true,
they are also obliged to accept the other conclusion :
that if new species once originated through primitive
generation, new species ought still to originate through
primitive generation. On the other hand, those scien-
tists who recognize aims in the worl4 for which the
world and each part of it is destined, and which are at-
tained in the world through the processes of coming into
existence, have to expect in advance that the organic
kingdoms are also planned with reference to those aims.
They naturally see the aim of the origin of species at-
tained, where in the organic world beings appear who
combine with the highest physical organization a self-
conscious and resix)nsible spiritual life, and who are
capable of conceiving the ideal, even the idea of God.
For, with the appearance of these beings, there
enter upon the theatre of the world beings who
go beyond the value of a purely physical organism
and of a purely somato-psychical life, and in like
manner represent again a higher order of beings;
just as the first appearance of organic life on
earth once introduced a new and higher stage of exist-

•^^.

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN. THEORIES. 77

ence in contrast to the inorganic world. Scientists who
take this standpoint can readily adopt the fact that we
do not now observe the origination of new species; for
it is in full harmony with their metaphysical doctrines,
without the same being on that account essentially de-
pendent upon the confirmation or rejection of the hypoth-
esis of the present constancy of species. With this
very fact, the maxim that if new species once originated
through descent, new species must still originate through
descent, has lost for them its truth, and therefore its
power of demonstration. So we see even here, while
in the midst of the discussion of a purely scientific prob-
lem, in what close correlation metaphysics and natural
science stand, and moreover — since the metaphysical
view is most closely connected with the religious — in
what close relationship religion and natural science
stand. At the same time we also see how little the
metaphysical interest, and much more how little the
religious interest, has reason to avoid the investigation
of facts in nature.

8^. The Theory of Evolution — Archaeology^ Ethnography^

Philology,

The evolution theory teaches that the species have
developed themselves one from another in gradual trans-
itions, each of which was as small as the individual dif-
ferences still observed to-day among the individuals of
the same species. It is not without support, especially
in the history of the devdopment of plants and anhnals,

Each organic being becomes what it is by means of
organic development. Each plant, even the highest
organized, begins in its seed-germ with a simple cell,

• >

4

^« V'

i* -^ '-■"■■'- ^ ' -." •

78 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

and is differentiated in constant development up to the
fully perfected individual. Each animal, even the most
highly organized (man included), begins the course of
its existence as an egg; and each egg has no greater
viilue of form than that of a single cell. This egg-cell
is differentiated, after fecundation, in gi-adual and im-
perceptible transitions, farther and farther, higher and
higher, until the individnal has reached its perfect bi'gan-
ization. No organ, no function of the body, no power
or function of the soul or of the mind, appears sud-
denly, but all in gradual development. Since we see all
individuals thus originating by means of gradual devel-
opment, the possibility lies very near that the different
organic formations of all the organic kingdoms could
also have been originated by the same means.

In still another direction does the history of the de-
velopment of single plants and animals make this possi-
bility plausible to us. In the animal world, and partly
also in the plant world, the single individuals of higher
sx)ecies in their embryonic development pass through
states of development, in the former stages of which
not only the individuals of the most different species
look confusingly similar to one another, but also the
embryos in their organization remind us of the perfected
state of much lower classes of beings. In order to give
a clear idea of the first mentioned facts, Hackel, for
instance, in his " Natural History of Creation " and in his
" Anthropogeny," represents by engravings the embryos
of different vertebrates and also of man; representations
which — although, according to the judgment of compe-
tent scientists, unfortunately not exact, but modi-
fiedj after the manner of stencil plates, in favor of

'.•• •

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 79

greater similarity — ^yet make it quite clear that the sim-
ilarity of the diffei*ent embryos must be very great We
see, for instance, on one table the embryos of a tish, a
salamander, a turtle, a fowl ; on a second, those of a
pig, an ox, a rabbit, a man ; on a third, those of a turtle,
a fowl, a man ; and we find the similarity really great.
Examples of the second fact — that individuals of higher
classes or orders in former states of their embryonic
development represent an organization which corre-
sponds to the full-grown individuals of the lower classes
— are : the tail of the human embryo, the gill-arches of
the embryos of reptilia, of birds, of mammalia, and of
man. Now Hackel here takes up again an idea first
suggested by Fritz Miiller, and derives from these obser-
vations the ''biogenetic maxim," as he calls it: "The
history of the germ is an epitome of the history of
the descent ; or, in other words, ontogeny (the history
of the germs or the individuals) is a recapitulation of
phylogeny (the history of the tribe); or, somewhat more
explicitly: that the series of foniis through which the
individual organism passes during its progress from the
egg-cell to its fully developed state,* is a brief, com-
pressed reproduction of the long series of forms through
which the animal ancestors of that organism (or the
ancestral forms of its species) have passed from the
earliest periods of so-called organic creation down to the
presenttime." In his latest publication, " Ziele und Wege
der heutigen Entwicklungsgeschichte," ("Aims and
Methods of the Present History of Evolution"), he admits
into the formulation of his biogenetic maxim also the
consideration of those phenomena in the ontogenetic
development which are no recapitulation of the history

\

— »■*■•!.«- ^ -,•-.--

80 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

of the stem, but originated by adapting the embryo to
its surroundings. In the description and explanation of
this theory, he uses a term which throws upon nature a
peculiar reproach, never before made, namely : cenog-
eny, or history of falsifications, in contrast to palingeny,
or history of abridgments. This amended formula now
reads : The development of germs is an abridgment of
the development of stems,^and is the more complete
according as the development of the abridgment is con-
tinued by inheritance, the less complete according as the
development of the false is introduced by adaptation.

Now, we ask : Is this biogenetic maxim correct ? and
moreover, from the fact of the organic individuals
originating through development, are we entitled to
draw the conclusion that even the species must have
originated through development ? To this question we
can no longer get an answer from the life-processes of
living organisms ; for we have already mentioned the
fact that, according to the present state of our knowl-
edge, we can no longer observe the origination of a new
species. Moreover, the embryonic states of develop-
ment show also, in all their similarity, even in the very
first stages, and with especial distinctness in these first
stages, many differences between the single species ;
and this is true especially of those species which, accord-
ing to the followers of this so-called biogenetic maxim,
should lie in the same stem-line, — so that the direct
scientific value of the embryological results to the palse-
ontological investigation, or of the latter to the former,
is so far very slight. Such a problem, however, as the
one contained in that biogenetic maxim, which only
gives to investigators the direction in >^hich possibly iiu

•m

' a.

(

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 81

interesting and profitable path can be opened, does not
at all deserve the name of a "Zat^?." K. E. von Baer,
the founder of the whole present science of the history of
development, has certainly a most competent judgment
of the correctness of this so-called biogenetic maxim ;
and he convincingly shows, in his essay on '' Darwin's
Doctrine," that the embryos never represent a former
^ animalic form', but that their, development follows the
principle of representing first the common characteristics
of the class, then those of the order, etc., until finally
the individual characteristics appear in the formation. \
Those who wish more information about embryology can/
find it in Heinrich Rathke^s " Entwicklungsgeschichte
der Wirbelthiere "(" History of the Development of
Vertebrates"), edited by A. KoUiker, Leipzig, Engel-
mann, 1861; and those who wish to inform themselves
as to the influence of the ontogenetic results of the solu-
tion of the phylogenetic problems, will find, besides the
before-mentioned work of Wigand, rich and clearly elab-
orated material in the publication of Wilhelm His —
" Unsere Korperform und das physiologische Problem
ihrer Entstehung, Briefe an einen bef reundeten Natur-
foi-scher" ("The Form of our Body and the Phy-
siological Problem of its Origin ; Letters to an Asso-
ciate Scientist"), Leipzig, Vogel, 1876. The latter
writer, although he advocates the descent theory, rejects
the hasty assertions of Hackel with direct and convinc-
ing arguments.

Thus embryology, having from the simple fact of an
origin of single plants and animals through descent at
least confirmed the idea of ihe possibility, oi an origin
also of species through development, forsakes us in th?

I

>:v. . -• . .• " .-■■'":

82 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

»

inqury as to the reality of such a genealogy of develop-
ment, and refers us to other sciences.

Such a science, from which we certainly are entitled
to expect a decided answer, is geology. For if the evo-
lution theory is right, those periods of the history of
our globe in which new species originated — namely, the
periods of geology — must show us also ihe forma of transl-
ation between the different species. And, indeed, geol-
ogy gives us an answer ; but it reads conti'adictorily :
It says yes, and it says no.

Geology does show us forms of transition, and, in-
deed, most frequently in the lower classes of animals.
Who that has once studied petrifactions, does not know
the mass of forms of the terebmtulse, the belemnites,
and the ammonites/in the Jura formation ? Wiirtem-
berger has brought light into the perplexing division of
(^ species of the ammonites by simply showing their tempo-
rary and systematic transitions into one an-
other. In the fresh water chalk formation of Stein-
heim, near Heidenheim, in Wiirtemberg, scientists have
found, on the same place, in an uninterrupted series of
strata, the snail valvata or paludina multiformis in all
imaginable transitions — from the flat winding, showing
the form of a chess-board, up to the sharp form of a
tower. And it was not, as Hilgendorf/tbought, in a
series which can be traced in the strata according to time,
but, as Sandberger^ays, in quite a varied mixture, yet
in all imaginablo'^modifications. But even among the
higher and the highest classes of animals, we can trace
the transitions. The flying sauria, if not in their organs
of flying, which i*emind us more of the bat, at least in
head, neck, and toes, are closely connected mth the birds

. /

I •. *. •*•

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 83

— ^the oldest birds of the Jura and chalk formations, with
their tail-spines similar to the reptilia and their teeth in
the beak to the sauria. The tertiary formations espe-
cially show the primitive history of many vertebrates in
very instructive forms of transitions — ^^which, for instance,
Riitimeyer, a scientist who is very cautious in his con-
clusions, very distinctly traced to the horse, to the rum-
inating animals, and lately also to the turtles. Still more
in detail, W. Kowalewskv has lately shown us the primi-
tive history of the horfe; and Leidy and Marsh have
further completed it by the addition of American forms,
the former having at the same time described the foims
which have led to the tapir.

But to such facts there are, on the other hand, expe-
riences directly contradictory.. Many lower and higher
forms of animals and plants appear in the geological
strata, so far as they have been explored, in a wholly
independent way. We have mentioned, in the foregoing
section, that the main types of the invertebrates
appear somewhat contemporaneously and without
any traceable intermediate form. The trilobites, a
quite liighly organized order of Crustacea, appear in the
strata of the siliirian epoch almost suddenly, in very
many and very distinctly marked species. The uncer-
tainty of our knowledge shows itself most clearly when
we ask for the geneologic relationship of the vertebrates.
In Chap, n, § 1 and § 2 we have already referred to the
value which Darwin, and more especially Hackel, lays on
the relationship of the larva of the ascidia to the lancelet
/ fish. Now ihe important testimony of K. E. von Baer,
j in his ^^Memoires de PAcad^mie de St. P^tersbourg,'^
Y Ser. vii, Vol. 19, No. 2, tells us that the nerve-ganglion

84 . THE THEORIES OF DARWIN,

of the asciclia lies oh the side of the stomach, and on
that accouijt can not be homologous with the spine of the
vertebrates, but that the cord in the larva of the ascidia
is nothing more than a support for the tail in swimming,
which afterwards disappears, as with many other larvae.
As to the course of reasoning in reaching these geneal-
ogical conclusions, he says: " The hypothesis is indeed
flexible. According to common reasoning, that which
shows itself early in the development is an inheritance
of the first progenitors. Therefore the ascidae ought to
descend from the vertebrates, and not the reverse. But
it was necessary to show the descent pf the vertebrates
from the lower forms. In order to respond to such a
necessity, men sometimes reverse their conclusions.
Although favorably disposed to the doctrine of the trans-
mutation of the animalic forais, I want a complete proof
before I can believe in a transformation of the vertebrate
type into that of the mollusca." Moreover, the zoolo-
gists Semper and Dohrn find in the embryonic develop-
ment of the sharks, the scates, and other cartilaginous
fishes, organs which would bring them rather into a
nearer relationship with the ringed worms than with the
Crustacea. When, on the other hand, we look around
in palaeontology, the oldest fossil fishes remind us
neither of the Crustacea nor of the ringed worms, but of
the crabs : a class of animals which lies entirely outside
of Hackel's stem-line of vertebrates. Also the first ap-
pearance of mammalia does not show transitions. Thus
far we have not found in the geological strata any vesti-
ges of the half-apes, which, according to the hypothesis
of the evolutionists, as a common stcm-line for the lines
of ape and man development, once played such an im-

^

I
I

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 85

portant rdle^ and which have quite numerous represen-
tatives.

But the answer which geology gives to our questions
as to the probable confirmation of the evolution theory,
naturally becomes most interesting where the origin of
man is treated of. Our attention is, therefore, especially
directed to the most recent formations of the globe which
.show us the oldest remains of man. The most instruc-
tive are those parts of the skeleton which allow us to
draw the most convincing conclusions as to the degree
of mental development of an individual, namely: the
parts of the skull. Although human bones seem to have
been less easily preserved than those of animals, and
are, comparatively speaking, very scarce, especially
more so than prehistoric implements, still there are not
wanting such remains, which go back far beyond histor-
ical time. The oldest known skull is the celebrated one
of the Neander cave near Diisseldorf, with its large
vault of the forehead, and its low height. Although
Virchow finds on it evidences of I'achitis in youth and'
of gout in old age, as well as of injuries, it nevertheless
can not have been changed in its fundamental form by
any sickness, even according to Virchow. This very skull
now indisputably shows a still lower formation, which,
although quite essentially difierent fi*om the type of the
ape, stands nearer to it than is the case with the skulls
of men in later times. Of a later date, and of a corre-
spondingly higher form, are the skull of Engis, of Cann-
statt, the skulls of the Belgian caves (especially Chau-
vaux), of France, and of Gibraltar. According to the
weighty authority of Schaaflfhausen (note his opening ad-
dress at -(he Wiesbaden Congress of the Anthropologi-

V « « * 1

86 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

cal Society, 1873), the skulls and the remaining parts
of the skeleton show more indications of a lower forma-
tion the older they are. He especially calls attention to
a certain bone of the roof of the skull — ^the Os interpa-
rietale or the so-called Os InccB — which has only recent-
ly been recognized as a characteristic of a lower forma-
tion of skulls, standing nearer to that of animals. As
late as the summer of 1873, two human skeletons were
found at Coblenz in a volcanic sand, of which Schaaff-
hausen says : " No less than eight anatomic marks of a
lower formation, which probably have not heretofore
been found together, indicate the great age of these re-
mains." With all these traces of a difference between
the former and the present state of the physical condi-
tion of man, the differences between the type of man and
that of the animal are still great enough to leave wide
open the possibility of the origin of man through some
other means than that of gradual development. On the
other hand, it is more or less in favor of the evolution
idea, that so far such old remains of man have been
found in places which certainly can not have been the
cradle of mankind, and that those parts of the earth
which we would naturally suppose to be the first dwel-
ling place of the earliest human genera have been little
or not at all investigated. And also the hypothesis of
Hackel, that the cradle of mankind wias a land between
Africa and Asia, now sunk in the sea, and 6alled Lemu-
ria, can be neither proved nor denied. Such vague
possibilities have indeed not the least scientific value.

In considering these contradictory results of geologi-
cal investigation, we dare not overlook three points :
First, our knowledge of the jcrust of the globe is still

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 87

very fragmentary, and does not yet extend over the
whole globe. Further, it lies in the nature of the ease
that the strata in mountain formdtions can only give
a very incomplete picture of the whole variety of the
real organic life which may have populated the earth and
the sea. What a poor picture of the present plant and
animal life would be offered, for instance, by the soil of
our continents, the slime, sand, and pebbles of our coasts
and of the bottoms of our lakes and seas, if we had to
construct from them alone the fauna and flora of the
present! A third, but purely hypothetical, considera-
tion is rendered of importance particularly by Darwin
and Hackel ; namely, that the forms of transition with-
out doubt Existed for a shorter period than those forms
whose organization has established itself in fully devel-
oped species.

Thus far we have directed our attention to inquiring
how the ors:anic individuals were orisjinated — and have
throughout observed a successive development; next, we
have questioned geology-^and here also have observed a
progress in the appearance of the species, but have re-
ceived at the same time contradictory answei*s to the
question whether this progress presents itself as a grad-
ual development of one species from another or as a
sudden appearance. So the reasons for and against the
evolution theory almost balance one another; and it is
not improbable that the hypothesis of an origin of spe-
cies through development will have to share its authority
with the hypothesis of a.descent of species through hete-
rogenetic generation, as well as with the hypothesis
of a primitive generation of lower organisms, still repeat-
ing itself at a later time. Thus for the origination of

. ■/■•::■■ 'fj -•/

& liibii'^^'.W\'.V." •■::'

^

88 THE THEORIES OF DAKWIN.

groups lying nearer together, we have the evolution the-
ory; for the other groups, and especially for the origi-
nation of types where no transitions to other types can
be traced, the theory of the heterogenetic or primitive
generation recommends itself; and both theories thus
far are of a purely hypothetical nature.

But there is still a third realm, which is just as open
to our observation as the history of the development of
organisms and as geology, and of which we can also ask,
whether it does not open for us an indirect way to the
knowledge of the origin of species, and especially of
man — a knowledge which we can no longer approach in
the direct way of observation. This realm is natural
history and the histoi^y of the development of the human
race. For mankind also is engaged in a process of de-
velopment, and its present members do not stand on the
same height Now the question is, to what beginning
can we trace backward the development of mankind,
and ^ what succeeding stages of development from this
present condition? And do we find in these earliest
periods, and on these lowest stages, points that are con-
.nested with still earlier conditions and organizations,
and especially points which could genealogically join
together mankind and the animal kingdom? ^ Three
sciences, still young, favorite children of the present
generation, participate in investigating this realm,
namely, archcBology^ comparative ethnology^ and com-
paratwe philolog-y,

ArchoBoloffy \e9i'i& us back to far-off times. It is a

^fact that, chronologically speakings man lived in the

'glacial period-^according to French scientists, eveasbe-

fore it; and that, palseontologically speaking, man and

!r^'Xr*

■I

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 89

*.f

-■v

mammoth lived at the same time, .and, accoixling to^a
discovery made some thirty years, ago at Denise in Mid-
dle France, probably even man and another pld^r and
defunct form of pacliydermata, the elephas meridipp-
alis, in North America man and the. mastodon.., J^h^
i-eader may compare the discoveries regarding the age
of mankind, as they are described most rece.ntly Jjy Sir
Charles Lyell in his work upon this, subject, in the pub-
lications of the Anthropological , Congress at Bru^S(^ls,.in
the year 1873, and in those of the foui-th General Assem-
bly of the German Society for Anthropology, Ethnojogy
and Primitive History, at Wiesbaden, in the year 1873.
..Now, to be sure, from the. oldest human toqh, ap,d
tUens^Us that are found, we can expectjStill.less th^
from the oldest human bones that they will thi:o\Y (JiriBct
light upon the answer to the question of the origin of,mai).
For where man not only uses topis, hut ,manu/(iqture8
the same for use, a wide breach already exists, between
man and aninial. .Manufactured articles, therefore, c^n
only throw some light on the history of the development
of the a-lready existing human race. And even this
light, is less clear than we perhaps expected in view of
the first interesting prehistorical discoveries. It is tru^,
all tbe§e discoveries show us an ascent from the simplest
and roughest forms to the more perfect; from the split
but unpolished stone to the polished, and from stone to
bronze and iron. But a pi ogress of the human race$ in
manufacturing and using articles, from the simple and
rough forna to the more artificial, lies so much in the
nature, of. the case, and is so taken for granted with
every .C5onception of the origin of man, even with that
contradictory to Darwinism, that from this simplicity of

90

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

the earliest tools we can not at all conclude that there
was a condition of mankind lying near that of animals;
and especially we can draw only general and uncertain
conclusions as to that which makes man man^ as to the
spiritual and moral qualities of those prehistoric men.
Moreover, in discoveries belonging to the very old-
est, we come upon drawings and engravings from
which we recognize the man of those primitive times as
a creature whose life was not entirely taken up in the
animalic struggle for existence, but was already adorned
with those ideal pursuits and enjoyments which we are
accustomed to ascribe to the height of civilization. Ex-
amine, for instance, the drawing of a mammoth on a
mammoth tooth of Dordogne, which the French scien-
tists Lartet and Christy have reprinted in their Reliquiae
Aquitanicse (1868), and which Sir Charles Lycll has
copied in his "Age of the Human Race." How much
spirit and life in this primitive work of art ! Or read
what Fraas, in the '^Journal of the German Society for
Anthropology," March, 1874, reports about the picture
of a grazing reindeer, engraved on a knife handle made
of the horns of a reindeer, which was lately found in the
cave of Thayngen near Schaffhausen, and which surpasses
in beauty all rough drawings thus far found. The whole
bearing of the animal — the muscles of the legs and the
head, the form of the many-branched antlers, with the
wide-spread eyes, the representation of the hair upon the
body and under-jaw — all disclose a real artist among
those savages.

This is also to be taken into consideration: that
those men, whose traces we find, could possibly have
been the descendants of more noble predecessors, driven

./ ^ .?

.>-» ••. 't.i . .

« - — - 4

•-N . 1 •■•4..

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 91

off and degenerated, just as well as they could have been T-
representatives of the whole former condition of culture
of mankind. In England, where the questions of the
first condition of culture of mankind are very warmly
discussed, the Duke of Argyll particularly, in his
"Primeval Man," advocates these views, and very forci-
bly calls attention to the fact that thus far the places of
the discovery of the earliest traces of man undoubtedly
lie very far from the original home of the human race;
while Sir John Lubbock, in his "Origin of Civilization" <

and in his "Prehistoric Times," and also Tylor in his ■<
" Beginning of Culture " and in his " Early History of
Mankind," take the opposite view of a progress of man- -i
kind from the most uncultivated beginnings. '^

Archaeology, as a whole, seems to do no more than
admit that its results can be incorporated into the theory
of an origin of the human race through gradual develop- ^
ment, if this theory can be shown to be correct in some
other way, and that its results can just as well be
brought into harmony with a contradictory theory.

Comparative ethnology gives us quite a similar re-
sult. It is true, there are races of mankind in the low-
est grades of human existence. It is well kno\vn how
Darwin, in his voyage on board the "Beagle," got one
of his first vivid impressions of the possibility of an evo-
lution of man from the animal world, by seeing the in-
habitants of Tierra del Fuego; and it is remarkable that
the arms, tools, and furniture, used by the lowest savages,
are very similar to the earliest remains of civilized races
found on earth. The conclusion lies extremely near,
that the savages simply remained in earlier stages of
human culture; and an ethnographic picture of mankind

92 . THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

at present would in a similar way give an approximafe-
ly correct view of its former development, as the natiiral
zoological and botanical system of the present fauna
and flora must give us at the same time the key to their
pedigree; supposing the Darwinian theory to be correct.

If it were so, ethnology would be an altogether inesti-
mable help for tiie exploration of the descent and devel-
opment of the human race. For the extremely few and
rare fossil remains of man — which, moreover, do not
give us any answer to the most important questions in
regard to the mental and moral .quality of the primitive
man — ^would be renderled complete by living examples
of the kind, which remained at the old stages of develop-
ment.

But much is still wanting, before the followers of an
evolution theory dare to use ethnology directly as a
primitive history of the development of mankind, pre-
pared and preserved for them. Especially the before-
mentioned objection of the Duke of Argyll — that the
lowest savages of our time can just as well be depraved
as be men who remained stationary in the process of de-
velopment — has here increased weight. Moreover, even
with the savages of to-day, a ixide state of their tools
and a low condition of their mental and moral life are
not so nearly parallel as to allow unrestricted conclu-
sions to be drawn. Finally, we still know too little
about the state of culture of the savages; and the deeper
and higher the intellectual and ethical possessions of
mankind ar6, the; presence of which among the savages
is' in question, the more uncertain is our knowledge.

Trtiis is especially true of the most important ques-
tion in this connection — the question as to the existence

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 93

or absence of an idea of God, and the different stages
of development of religious ideas. While some assume
as an established fact, that there are savage tribes with-
out any idea of God or any religion, and even give the
names of these tribes, especially of some from the inte-
rior of South America; while Sir John Lubbock syste-
matically enumerates seven stages of religious develop-
ment, from atheism to the connection of religious with
moral conceptions, and lets each single race ruYi
through these stages in an identical series until it either
remains on one of the seven stages or arrives at the
highest : yet, on the contrary, other equally trustworthy
scientists assert that there is not a single human race
without some idea of religion and of a God — indeed, not a
single race without a monotheistic presentiment — and
that all heathenism, down to its most degenerate stages,
consists not so much in a non-recognition of a God as in
ignoring him. They call especial attention to the diffi-
culty of getting acquainted with the ideas of a savage
tribe without living with it through many years and
being intimate with its language and customs, and espe-
cially without enjoying the unrestricted confidence
of tiie tribe. Mutual misunderstandings, a suspicious
reserve, evasive and untrue answers to questions, are
entirely unavoidable without those conditions. At any
rate, the fact desei'ves attention, that those who have
been longest and most active among savages, and who
enjoyed their confidence to the fullest extent, all reached
this result: they found them not only not without
religion, but also not without a presentiment of the
inonotheistic idea of God. Livingstone, ifor instance,
expressed this idea decidedly of all the African tribes

94:

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

with which he became acquainted; and Jellinghaus
gives the same evidence in regard to the Kols in South
Asia.

The cunatomic results of ethnology are more favor-
able to the descent thedry, although they too lead no
farther than to. the conclusion that the skuU-foyms of the
lowest tribes represent a lower stage of formation than
those of the higher, and that these lower skull-forms are
relatively nearer to the ape-form than the higher, but
that they are still separated from it by a wide interval.

It appears, then, that even ethnology does not lead
us essentially nearer the solution of the question than
archaeology and geological anthropology.

The relatively strongest support to the evolution
theory is given by comparative philology ; and since
language is the most important and most decisive of all
the distinctive characteristics which separate man and
animal*, this science deserves especial consideration.

In the realm of the natural sciences, the enormous
progress of palaeontology on the one hand and of sys-
tematic zoology and botany on the other took place step
by step together, and thus prepared the way for Dar-
win's idea — which, from the rich material of analytical
investigations, only tries to draw the simple synthesis,
and to show at the same time in the zoological and botan-
ical system a representation of the zoological and botan-
ical history of development. In quite an analogous way,
a process took place in the linguistic realm which in
independent investigations prepared the way for Dar-
winism, and now, since Darwin's theory has sought

^Compare Max MuUer, " Lectures on the Sdence of Language/'
6th ed., London, 1871, vol. i, p. 408.

'-■}

I .

•-- - . ..

* ■ ■• '.. ■'. ;-' '. ■ "'■•'•" '-":»' ''•"'"'• "r*

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 95

acknowledgment in the realm of natural history, brings
again Darwin's ideas to the support of philology.

Linguistic and ethnographic investigations, especially
the linguistic works of the missionaries, long ago resulted
in gathering rich material from the storehouse of the
language of races now living, and the latest works in
the realm of historical, etymological, and comparative
philology had traced the branches and twigs of the
better known languages to stems and roots lying far
back. The result of the comparison soon became the
same as in the realm of the organic world : what pre-
sented itself in the system of the living languages as a
lower form, seemed to represent itself as the older and
more original form also in the history of languages.
Therefore, all the prominent linguistic investigator
found themselves more and more urged to accept a the-
ory which declares language, this entirely specific char-
acteristic of man, to be subject to the same laws of
development from the simpler and most simple forms as
the world of the organic. Long ago so celebrated a man
as Jacob Grimm, — ^' Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache "
("The Origin of Language"), Berlin,Dummler — following
the footsteps of Wilhelm von Humboldt, had established
a theory, according to which language is " not created,
but produced by the liberty of the human will;" and judg-
ing from many of his Darwinistic utterances concerning
the origin and development of language, he had traced
its development in such a way as to arrive at the conclu-
sion that artless simplicity in the unfolding of the senses
is the first period of its appearance.

The scientists divide all the languages of the earth
into three great groups : first, the monosyllabic, isolat-

96 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

J-.

ing, radical, or asynthetic languages ; second, the
a^^lutinaht, terminatidnal, or poly synthetic languages ;
third, the inflectional languages. They are of the opinion
tlikt even the languages of highest rank — the inflectional
—very probably took a starting-point frona the asynthetic
languages, and a course of development thi-ough the
agglutinants, and that in like manner the agglutinants
have behind them an asynthetic period. Thus they trace
all the languages back to certain roots^ which are more
or less common to the difierent gi'oups of languages.

To the question that now arises — How did these roots
originate ? — the linguists give us three difierent answers.
Th^ onomatopoetic theory, called by Max Miiller the
Wow - Wow Theory, traces them to imitations of the
sound (W. Bleek, G. Ciirtius, Schleicher, Wedgewood,
Fari^ar); the interjectional theory, called by Max Miiller
the Pooh -Pooh, or Pah -Pah Theory, traces them to
expressions of the senses (Condillac) ; a third theory
declares the roots to be phonetic types (Max Miiller,
LaSiir' Geiger, Heyse, Steinthal); while it is still
an open question, whether the attempts at ex-
planatidn of these types must here come to a stand-
still fot the present, as Max Miiller thinks, or whether,
according to Lazar Geiger, we can trace the first rootr
exp^ressidns especially to impressions of light and color.

The reasons from which Max Miiller, in his '^Lec-
tures On the Science of Languages" (Vol. I., Lect. DC),
reje6ts the first two theories and proves the third, are
quite convincing. . Even if, in a purely hypothetical
wiiy,' a'lkngiidgfe could 1)e thought of in abstractor the
roots of which only consist in imitations of"' ^unds
br'int^jectibti^; sitill in ih&' realty existihff languages,

N.- .. .^ >.- V^

♦>5?5.i>-.

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 97

30 far as we can trace back and uncover their roots, the
roots imitating sounds and the interjectional roots
form only a small and entirely isolated minority, which
neither shares in, nor is capable of development; they
stand like "dead sticks in a live hedge." By far the
greater number of roots, and all which are capable of
development, express abstractions from visible objects,
conditions and activities,, and therefore presume a hu-
man intelligence, reflecting with self-consciousness,
which formed and used the roots.

Now Max Miiller sees, back of this period, still open
to science, in which the rootrclements of the human lan-
guages were fixed, a long period of exuberant and unhin-
dered growth of the elements of langiftige, in which the
roots were separated from the multitude of nascent
tones by elimination or natural selection in the sti-uggle
for existence. In this realm, which is no longer open
to investigation, the naturalistic and the linguistic friends
of the evolution, theory are now in entire accord. Wil-
helm Bleek, in his small, but very noteworthy essay,
'^Ueber den Urspning der Sprache " ("Origin of
Language"), Weimar, Bohlau, 1868, p. 11, uses
this ingenious figure : what the animal world pos-
sesses analogous to language, takes about the same
position as, in the art of printing, the block-pruit does
in relation to printing with movable types. On page
12, he sees in the communication of the emotions among
animals the sources from which under favorable condi-
tions (in consequence of which the separation of lan-
guage into articulated parts became possible) human
language might have originated. This idea, which is
closely joined to the interjectional theory, Darwin meet s

7 .

98 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

with a related idea, depending upon the onomatopoeti-
cal theory, when he says, in his "Descent of Man":
" Since monkeys cei-tainly understand much that is said
to them by man, and when wild, utter signal-cries of
danger to their fellows, may not some unusually wise
ape-like animal have imitated the growl of a beast of
prey, and thus told his fellow-monkeys the nature of the
expected danger ? This would have been a first step in
the formation of language."

But philology, from the point where it goes farther
back in search of the roots of language, leaves the safe
ground of knowledge and commits itself to the fluctuat-
ing ocean of conjectures; and since also the scientific
evolution theory has only a hypothetical value, the sup-
port of a hypothesis in the one science by a hypothesis
in the other naturally adds no weight to its probability,
either for the one or the other. Besides, we must not
overlook the fact that the very point in the history of
the development of languages on which the investi-
gation, as it looks backwards, must at present pause —
namely, the existence of linguistic roots — ^presumes a
faculty of abstraction which can not be thought of
without self-consciousness.

Therefore archseology, comparative ethnography,
and comparative philology, show us quite clearly
a development^ but not an origin of mankind
through development. Yet they do show an already
existing development of mankind; for all three sciences
lead back to starting-points where mankind already ex-
isted with all the essential attributes of mankind, and
leave us without answer to our questions as to the con-
ditions lying still farther back. Their results we can

r - •
1

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 99

without difficulty harmonize with a theory which sup-
poses mankind to have originated by evolution, provided
such a theory could be confirmed from another side ;
but they agree just as well with a contrary theory, which
excludes the origin of mankind by gradual develop-
ment.

Taking, thus, everything into consideration, we come
to the conclusion that the evolution theory, like the de-
scent theory, is so far only a hypothesis — ^and, indeed,
a hypothesis which as such has a much more problemat-
ical character than the descent theory. For while in
regard to the latter we had to say that we have either
this explanation or none of the origin of the higher
species, with the evolution theory there is not even room
for this alternative. For even in case of its failure, a
descent of one species from another through heterogene-
tic generation is certainly very possible. Besides,
it is not only possible, but even probable, that both the-
ories — that of heterogenetic generation and that of grad-
ual development — may have to share with one another in
the explanation of the origin of species; and even that,
especially for the lowest species and for the beginnings
of the main types, primitive generation also has its
share in the establishment of the paternity.

The evolution theory could only pass beyond the
rank of a hypothesis, if we should succeed in showing
the impelling forces of such an origin of species through
development. Such an attempt can be made in two
ways — the metaphysical and the scientific -empirical.
The first, the metaphysical, although it may be justified
in its general principles, will always, from the point
at which it attempts to approach the concrete questions as

100

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

to the origin of single species, expose itself to the
fate of being a priori rejected by science as unjustified,
and of being a posteriori confuted by facts — a fate which
it has richly and clearly experienced in the fii*st half
of our century. But the discussion of the metaphysical
way does not belong to the present purely scientific part
of our investigation; it will, however, be shortly taken
up again in Book II. The other way, the scientific-
empirical, will have to be looked upon as correct
when it can show the impelling forces of development
in such powers and laws as are either still active to-day
or at least have their points of connection in powers and
laws active to-<lay. Such an attempt is the selection
theory. We have already in Chap. II, § 1 and 2,
given an outline of this theory, and have only yet to
discuss its present state of tenability.

§ 3. The Theory of Selection.

The selection theory also is not entirely without sup-
port in the realm of observed facts. How simply it ex-
plains the fixedness of the differences of closely related
species arising from their geographical and climatical
home! how simply the similarity of the color of many
animals from the color of their abode, through which
they have protection against persecution! how simply
the so-called mimicry — i.e.^ the similarity of certain spe-
cies in form and color with form and color of entirelv
different species in the midst of which they live, a simi-
larity which. often gives them protection against persecu-
tion ! The best known examples of this, in our regions,
are the spinning caterpillars, which in a state of rest
look strikingly like a twig of a tree or a shrub on which

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 101

they live. In other regions there is a multitude of the
most strikinsT freaks of nature of this kind — for instance,
butterflies and other insects, which at rest look like the
leaves of plants under which they live; butterflies living
among other butterflies which, by an oflfensive odor, are
protected against persecution, Jand although they are
themselves a favorite food for birds, carrying the form
and color of that badly-smelling family of butterflies.
We can also add the orchideae, and their resemblance to
bees, flies, butterflies, spiders, etc. A. R. Wallace and
Darwin themselves recur often to these striking appear-
ances.

But herewith we have mentioned nearly every sup-
port which the selection theory has on the ground
of observed facts. More numerous and more weighty
are the objections to it. First of all, we have to state
that the selection theory no longer enjoys that protection
which the descent and evolution theories can justly claim,
against the main objection, mentioned in Chap. Ill, §1, to
all the ideas of descent, development and selection. That
main objection is the permanence of species, observed
through thousands of years ; and the defense with which
the descent and evolution theories successfully weaken
it, is the statement of the fact that, since man appeared,
no new species has originated, and that therefore
the principle of the generation of species seems to
have come to a stand-still. Now this fact is no longer in
favor of the selection theory, but directly repugnant to
it. For the selection theory expressly declares the origin
of species through agencies that are all active still, and,
therefore, if they really suffice to explain the origin of
species, would not only have to generate new species,

I ■

'^X

102 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

but also to develop all the existing species. All those
circumstances which, according to the selection theory,
have led to change of species, are just as active to-day
as they are supposed to have been from the beginning
of organic life ; and the effect which we observe is
not change but permanence of species. The individ-
uals still have individual qualities; they still have the
tendency to inherit, in addition to the qualities of the
species, those of the individual ; the individuals still
change their abode, and therewith also their conditions
of life ; a natural selection still takes place in the strug-
gle for existence ; and what is the result? From an .
observation stretching over thousands of years, we find
nowhere an effect of natural selection going farther than
alterations in growth and color and purely external
changes in form. All the dispositions of organisms
and their reciprocal action aim not at increasing the indi-
vidual differences, but at reducing them to the average
character of the species. When the species change their
abode or their conditions of life, they either perish or
remain constant ; at least, with the exception of the
slight modifications before mentioned. Even those alter-
ations which artificial breeding produces, have a tendency
to return to the original species : as soon as cultivated
plants and domestic animals are left to themselves, they
run wild, i. e. , they reassume their original qualities.
Even the bastard-formations either cease to be fertile,
or, remaining fertile, finally return to one or the other
stem-form of the originally crossed species. Nor can
we oppose to these facts the consideration that the
period of time during which mankind has observed the
organisms is too short. For the permanence of very many

■ -- ; ^

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 103

species can be traced through thousands of years, and
the shortness of the period of our observations is amply
counterbalanced on the one hand by the multitude of
species from all parts of the organic systems which come
under our notice, on the other by the immense altera-
tions in the conditions of existence to which man submits
plants and animals. How great, for instance, are the
alterations in the conditions of existence which tropical
plants undergo in our hot-houses and gardens !. And the
only alteration they show is that they are stunted and
only bear blossoms with diflSiculty and fruits with still
greater difficulty.* Now, if the ever-active selection
principle does not produce in thousands of years even
minimum alterations which can be observed, science cer;
tainly is justified in doubting for the present the asserted
effect of that principle.

Thus not only are the facts directly opposed to the
autocracy of the selection principle ; but logic is also
none the less so. For, under the most favorable cir-
cumstances, selection would only explain the preserva-
tion and perhaps also the increase of useful qualities and
organs, if the same are already in existence and have
shown themselves useful to the individual ; but would
not explain their origination. This would rather most
emphatically be left to chance. According to the strict
selection theory, it would be pwe chxx>nce that among the
thousands and thousands of individual qualities of the
individuals of a species, such qualities are always exist-
ing as offer advantages to the individual in his struggle
for existence. And it would be a second series of
chances, which from generation to generation would

♦Compare v. Baer, " Studies, etc ," p. 294 ff.

^«»:.?- ■?

104 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

have to coincide with the fii'st, that among the individ-
ual qualities advantageous to the individual and making
it victorious in the struggle for existence, there should be
found always just those qualities which develop the spe-
cies and raise it to a higher rank and order in the zoolog-
ical and botanical systems. But the total of improba-
bilities which would have to be overcome continually in

' this theatre of chance, would in the course of genera-
tions necessarily amount to infinity. Thus, in the very
beginning, insuperable doubts arise as to how we can
explain from two causes the world of organisms which is
so richly, beautifully, and systematically arranged. The
first of these causes is the inclination to individual alter-
ation, inherited indeed in the organisms, but in itself
absolutely ^indifferent for the systematical idea in the
framework of the organic systems and for the pro-
gressive element in the development. The other is the
struggle for existence and natural selection, which
approaches the organisms purely from without
like individual variability, must as a whole appear a
necessity, but in each single case in the concrete mix-
ture of coinciding circumstances, would seem a work of
chance for the individual which is to be changed.

Moreover, it is a demonstrable impossibility to

V explain the origin of just those organs and members
in the structure of organisms which are systematically
the most significant and functionally the most important,
by means of natural selection. It is true that many of
these organs and members, in their perfected state, offer
to the organism an immense advantage over lower or-
ganisms; but if they had been originated through gi-ad-
ual development, they would have been in their first

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 105

beginnings and earlier stages of development at least
quite indifferent, often directly obstructive to the in-
dividual in its struggle for existence, and therefore would
have been called into existence and developed by agen-
cies which had an effect directly counteracting natural
selection. How high, for instance, stand the vertebrates
above the invertebrates ! Yet how could the first
deviation from the ganglionic system of the nerves of the
invertebrates to the cerebro-spinal system of the verte-
brates have occurred ? — and, especially, how could the first
deposit of the vertebral column have procured any benefit
to the individual in the struggle for existence? We
quote this objection from Karl Planck's "Wahrheit
und Flachheitdes Darwinismus," (*' Truth and Platitude
of Darwinism"), Nordlingen, Beck, 1872.

Still more striking is the insufficiency of the selec-
tion theory for the explanation of the origin of the
organs of motion in the higher classes of vertebrates. A.
W. Volkmansays of it, in his instructive lecture, "Zur
Entwickelung der Organismen," ("Development of
the Organisms") Halle, Schmidt, 1875, p. 3 ff:
''Without doubt, animals with extremities will
come from animals which lacked extremities. Now
if the metamorphosis originated in the course of
one generation, the animals with extremities would have
an advantage over the I'est, which ought to show itself
in the natural selection; but if the development of an
extremity needs 10,000 generations, the individual in
which the process of the development begins produces
ioioo of the extremity and the advantage, resulting
therefrom is reduced to zero. For an organ can only
be of advantage when it performs its functions; and on

> .- - • -

.-.:.-. t

106 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

the first of the 10,000 stages of development the extrem-
ity can not perform its functions. Just think of the
cetacea ! Of the hind extremity, only its carrier, the
pelvis, has been developed; and even this is only repre-
sented by the two hip-bones, hanging in the flesh. As
to the python, the hind extremities are more complete,
but they lie hidden under the skin, and therefore are of
no use for local movement. Such examples show
that in the history of the development of an organ thous-
ands of years may pass, and numerous generations may
arise and disappear, until it reaches that grade of
perfection where it is of use to its owner. How there-
fore, can we look upon such an organ, when finally it is
perfect, as a product of selection in the sense of Darwin?"
We find the scientific objections to the selection the-
ory collected in detail in the before-mentioned works of
Wigand, Blanchard, His, von Baer, and especially in
Mivart's "Genesis of Species," (London, MacMillan,
1871); and it is a praiseworthy testimony of Darwin's
love of truth, that lately he himself, the originator of
the selection theory, willingly admits these weak points
in his theory,* while Hackel and many of his followers

♦Darwin says, on page 146, Eng.Ed., of his "Descent of Man":
**In the earlier editions of my 'Origin of Species,' I perhaps attrib-
uted too much to the action of natural selection or the survival of
the fittest. * * I did not formerly sufficiently consider the
existence of structures which, as far as we can at present judge,
are neither beneficial nor injurious; and this I believe to be one
of the greatest oversights as yet detected in my work. * * An
unexplained residuum of change, perhaps a large one, must be left to
the assumed uniform action of those unknown agencies, which oc-
casionally induce strongly -marked and abrupt deviations of struc-
ture in our domestic productions."

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES. 107

in Germany still stoutly reject every doubt of the auto-
cracy of the selection principle.

Li summing up all we have said thus far about the
theories of descent, of evolution, and of selection, we
still find all three solutions of the scientific problems to
be hypotheses, but hypotheses of very different value.
The idea of descent has the most scientific ground; it will,
as a permanent presupposition, govern all scientific inves-
tigations as to the origin of species, even if it does not
exclude the idea of an often-repeated primitive genera-
tion of organisms — especially of those that stand still
lower in development. More uncertain and less compre-
hensive is the position of the evolution theory; in all like-
lihood, the idea of an origin through development will
have to share the sovereignty with the idea of origin by
leaps through metamorphosis of germs. Still more un-
favorable is the state of the selection theory. It possesses
the merit of having started the whole question as to the
origin of species; it may explain subordinary develop-
ments; natural selection may have cooperated as a regu-
lator in the whole progress and the whole preservation
of organic life. Ed. von Hartmann, in his essay, "Truth
and Error of Darwinism," (Berlin, Duncker, 1875), on
page 111, compares its functions with those of the bolt
and coupling in a machine; but that the driving princi-
ple which called new species into existence lay or origi-
nated in the organisms, and did not approach them from
without, seems to be confirmed more and more decid-
edly with every new st^ of exact investigation as well
as of reflection.

BOOK II.

THE PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS AND CONSE
QUENCES OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

THE PHILOSOPHIC PROBLEMS.

Although, in accordance with the requirements of
the task before us, we have to restrict ourselves to giv-
ing the results of natural science only in their general
outlines, still we believe that we have not overlooked
any essential result which is of importance to the ques-
tion of the origin of species and of man. We have
now finished our scientific review ; and the conclusion to
which we see ourselves brought is that natural science,
in its investigation of the ori^n of species, has arrived
at nothing but problems which it is not able to solve.
There is a very great probability of an origin of species,
at least of the higher organized species, through descent ;
but whether through descent by means of gradual devel-
opment or of metamorphosis of germs, or whether with
one group of organisms it is in this way, with another
in that, is not yet decided. The attempt to explain their
entire origin exclusively by the selection theory, must
be regarded as a failure; all indications rather show that,
supposing the descent principle correct, the deciding
agencies which formed new species did not approach the
old species out of which the new ones originated from

(108)

THE PHILOSOPHIC PROBLEMS

109

without, but that they originated or were already in
existence within them. But what these agencies were,
natural science is at present unable to state ; and not
only those scientists who reject every idea of a descent,
but also those who are favorable to the ideas of descent
and of evolution, rejecting only the selection theory, are
at one in silent or open acknowledgment of this limit
of our knowledge, be it permanent or temporary.

But now the question arises: does the search after
these agencies henceforth remain the exclusive task of
natural science, and have we therefore simply to wait and
see whether it will succeed in finding them ? or have we
to look for the answer to these questions, which natural
science can no longer give, in another science — namely,
philosophy ? The first question we will have to answer
in the aflSrmative, the second in the negative. It is cer-
tainly understood that metaphysical principles must
underlie all physical appearances ; and the right to define
these principles, so far as they can be known, is willingly
conceded to philosophy by the scientists, with the excep-
tion of those of materialistic and naturalistic tendencies.
This mutual re-approaching of philosophy and natural
science is one of the most gratifyiYig, and, to both, most
fruitful evidences of the intellectual work of the present
generation. But these metaphysical principles them-
selves become cognizable only when the physical effects,
whose cause they are, become accessible to our knowl-
edge ; and every attempt to find them a priori^ or only
to extend them a priori^ will always fail through the
opposition of empirical facts ; or even if this attempt
accommodates itself to the existing state of knowledge
at a given time, it will always be overcome by the pro-

110 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

gress of the empirical sciences. In the most favorable
case, it can claim the value of a hypothesis which has to
be put to the proof, whether it can be empirically con-
firmed and whether we can successfully operate with it
in knowing the world of realities. But herewith it
leaves the realm of pure philosophy, and makes the
question of its right to exist dependent upon the decision
of natural science.

Since the decline of the doctrines of nature held by
Schelling, Steffcns, and Hegel, there has come to our
knowledge, from the domain of philosophy, but one
earnest attempt to explain the origin and development
of organisms down to the concrete differences between
single types, classes, and even orders and families, from
one single metaphysical principle; and this attempt has
been made by an antagonist of the descent doctrine. K.
Ch. Planck, in '^Seele und Geist, oder Ursprung, We-
sen und Thatigkeitsform der physischen und geistigen
Organisation von den naturwissenschaftlichen Grund-
lagen aus allgemein fasslich entwickelt" ("Soul and
Spirit, or Origin, Nature, and Form of Activity of Phys-
ical and Intellectual Organization, Clearly Developed
from a Scientific Basis"), Leipzig, Fues, 1871, and in
*'Wahrheit und Flachheit des Darwinismus " ("Truth
and Platitude of Darwinism"), Nordlingen, Beck, 1872,
makes the "inner concentration" the moving principle
of the whole development of the world. He thinks that
what belongs to the organism and to the soul has origi-
nated and developed up to man and his spiritual nature
thus: that the creating centrum of the earth pro-
duces individual centra on its periphery, which tend
more and more to bring into view the principle of cen-

THE PHILOSOPHIC PROBLEMS. Ill

tralization, in its contrast to the purely peripheral form
of existence, until it reaches its goal in man, with his cen-
tralizing spirit. We have no reason to reject the idea of a
principle of concentration in the world and its parts; it
is confirmed by observation, and shows itself fruitful in
many respects. But in spite of the many ingenious and
often suggestive ideas in the works of Planck, we have
some doubt about a system which tries to explain the
whole concrete abundance of the richness of formations
and life-forms in the world, rising higher and higher up
to spiritual existence and moral action, from the single
idea of concentration, and makes this principle the mys-
tical and mysteriously acting cause of a whole world and
its contents. We doubt at the outset the success of this
argument. We have especially the strongest objections
to a philosophical system which submits all the contend-
ing physical theories of the present to the measure of
that concentration principle, and from these purely meta-
physical reasons takes side exclusively with the one or
the other of the theories, or establishes new theories —
from the theories of atoms and ether, of light and heat,
down to geological questions as to whether universal
revolutions of the world or a continual development
took place. The solution of all these questions, in their
full extent, we do not attribute to philosophy, but to
natural science; although to a natural science which
permits philosophy to define the ideas with which it
operates and the general principles to which it comes.
For this renunciation — which philosophy, however, can
not at all escape — ^it will be the more richly rewarded in
this, that it obtains the more certainly for its own work
sure and sifted material. But all attempts which can not

■- .-.1, J^ U-. ■ • .

112 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

submit to this renunciation, give only an apparent right
to that view which Albert Lange, in his "History of
Materialism," defends, when he banishes speculative
philosophy to the realm ot imagination.

But in rejecting philosophy in the question of the
causes of the development and organization of the or-
ganic kingdoms, we did not reach the end of the philo-
sophic problems with which we are confronted. This
whole question is itself only a segment of the problems
before which we stand, and leads of necessity to other
questions^

Already within the series of development of the or-
ganic world, so fai' as it is investigated by natural sci-
ence, we have found and named a point (at the end of
§ 1, Chap, n. Book I), where the competency of pure
natural science comes to an end, and the question arises
whether another source of knowledge — i, e., even phi-
osophy — can not take up the investigation where natu-
ral science completes its task. This point was the origin
of 8elf-con8ciou87ie88 and otfree moral sdf-determination;
consequently, the origin of that which makes man man,
Groing still farther back on the temporal and ideal scale
of organic beings, we arrive at another point, which
natural science no longer can explain, and that is the
origin of sensation and of consciousness. With the ap-
pearance of sensation and consciousness, the animaZ
world cdixm^ into existence. Moreover, the whole scien-
tific question as to the origin and development of species,
so far as we have hitherto treated it, started from ini-
tial points where the organic and life already existed; it,
therefore, leads of necessity to the further question as to
the origifi of the orgcmic a/nd of life itself D. F. Strauss,

THE PHILOSOPHIC PROBLEMS. 113

in his "Postscript as Preface," thus clearly and
simply characterizes these still unfilled blanks in the
evolution theory : "There are, as is well known, three
points in the rising development of nature, to which the
appearance of incomprehensibility especially adheres (to
speak more categorically: which have not been explained
thus far by anybody). 'The three questions are: How
has the living sprung from that which is without life ?
the sentient (and conscious) being from that which is
without sensation ? that which possesses reason (self-con-
sciousness and free will) from that which is without
reason? — questions equally embarrassing to thought."
But even the question as to the origin of the organic and
of life can not be discussed without an investigation,
leading us farther back to the question as to the elements
of the world m general. The doctrine of atorm^ and the
mecfvcmical view of the worlds are the scientific evidences
of the efforts in this direction.

So far as the attempts to solve these four questions
start from the results of natural science and, from this
starting-point of the known, try to solve the unknown, we
will have to assign them in the encyclopaedic classifica- .
tion of the sciences, to that department of philosophy
which treats the doctrines of nature; and since our
whole investigation starts from the Darwinian theories,
and only tries to treat of what is properly connected
with them, the attempts to solve these four questions
offer themselves as the naturo-philosophic supplements of
the Da/rwinixm theories.

After concluding our treatment of them, we shall
have to speak of still another view, which presupposes
all these attempts at solution to be wholly or nearly suc-
8

114:

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

cessful, and draws an inference from them which no
longer belongs to the realm of natural science, but is a
purely metaphysical hypothesis; it is the abolition of the
idea of design in nature. In connection with this, finally,
we shall have to discuss the name which this view has
lately assumed, viz : ^^ Monism.'*^

Whatever further questions may arise, belong either
to the special subdivisions of natural science and philos-
ophy, or to theological and ethical problems.

■*i ;■

/-'- .i-_.xi

^ '-Jr. •-•• ■

-»;

"v. .•>•'• v.

A^Zi^*

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 115

CHAPTER I.

THE NATURO-PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS OP THE DAR-
WINIAN THEORIES.

§ 1. The Origin of Self -Consciousness and of Free Moral

Self' Determination,

K sensation, and its most developed form, conscious-
ness, is a reflex of the material in something immaterial,
which feels itself a unit in contrast to the material, and,
where sensation rises into consciousness, is opposed as a
unit to the material — self-consciousness again is the re-
flex of this sentient and conscious subject in a new and
still higher immaterial unity; and this again makes this
sentient and conscious subject, together with the sum of
its feelings and ideas, its object, changing it from a sen-
tient and conscious subject into a felt and presented
object. Therefore it is clear, and will be the result of
all thought upon these concepts, that as with sensation
and consciousness, so also with self-consciousness, some-
thing new always comes into existence — a higher cate-
gory of being, different from the merely material. The
first is the form of being of the animal world; the latter
that of mankind.

It is exactly the same with the first appearance of vol-
untary movement, and again with that of free moral
self-determination. The reaction of the sentient subject
upon his sensations is something qualitatively different
from the purely mechanical and physical action and re-

:--*^it^

V

116 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

action of pure matter; although, in order to understand
the possibility of a sensation as well as of a voluntary
movement, we must admit that the physical qualities of
matter must be such as to afford a basis ^nd condition
for sentient and reacting beings. That reaction is the
reaction of something immaterial upon the material,
even if it is entirely caused by the material and bound to
the material. Now, with free moral self-determina-
tion a new subject comes into existence and activity in the
individual, which makes that subject, reacting upon mere
sensations and ideas, its object, and, as a new immate-
rial subjective unity, acts determiningly upon that sub-
ject which has just become object. This new subject,
considered from the side of its receptivity, we call self-
consciousness; from the side of its spontaneity, free
moral self-determination. Whether we consider this
freedom predetermined or not, does not at all alter the
described fact and the qualitative difference between the
form of human moral agency and that of purely animal
spontaneity. For-even those advocating determination
must admit that the morally acting subject diistinguishes
itself from its object, and doe^ not take its motives to
action from the material and from the instinctive life
which is bound to the sensual and dependent on it.

Now it is true that all these circumstances in organ-
ized individuals which serve self-consciousness and free
moral self-determination as their condition, presupposi-
tion, and basis, all the dispositions of the soul and the
manifestations of life found in the animal world, will
be worthy of the closest attention even on this account :
becaiise they form the basis, the condition, and (if self-
consciousness and freedom are once present) an essential

--!?..*-'*-^ ~'^.

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS.

117

part of the contents and object of self-consciousness and
moral self-determination. But where the origin of man
is discussed, the central point of the investigation is no
longer the enumeration of those activities of the soul
of man whose analogies we also find in the animal world,
but rather in the answer to the question ss to how that
entirely new manifestation, self-consciousness and moral
self-determination, came into existence or could have
originated. This question is the more decidedly the
central point of the investigation, since this new form,
when once in existence, has for its object not only what
already appears in the life of the soul of animals, but
also receives a new object, which can only be an object
of self-consciousness and of moral self-^letermination,
and not of mere consciousness and instinctive life. These
new objects are the ideas leading up to the conception
of God and moral ideals.

Now this very question as to the origin of self-con-
sciousness and of free moral self-determination is wholly
misjudged as to its importance, and given remarkably
little attention by those evolutionists who are well versed
in the realm of natural science. The question as to the
origin of self-consciousness is either entirely ignored—
as if self-consciousness must originate wholly by itself,
if only those first steps of an intellectual and social
life which the animal world also shows, are once pres-
sent and properly developed — or the solution is put
aside with the most superficial analogies. The ques-
tion reganiing free mord . self-detem^nation, on the
other ha^d, is either likewise ignored, and for the same
reasons, or it is supposed that it must fail of itself, if

. V.

118 THE THEORIES OP DARWIN.

only this self-determination is explained in a determin-
istic way.

It is true, Darwin devotes several chapters of his
work, "Descent of Man," to a comparison of the intel-
lectual powers of man with those of animals, and these
chapters are full of the most interesting facts and com-
parisons ; but although his work comprises two volumes,
he devotes to the origin of self-consciousness, individual-
ity, abstraction, general ideas, etc., only a single page,
and justifies his brief treatment with the assertion that
the attempt at discussing these higher faculties is useless,
because hardly two authors agree in their definitions of
these terms. What he says about self-consciousness is
really contained in two sentences, namely: **But how
can we feel sure that an old dog with an excellent mem-
pry and some power of imagination, as shown by his
dreams, never reflects on his past pleasures or pains in
the chase? This would be a form of self-conscious-
ness." On the other hand, as Biichner has remarked in
his "Lectures about Darwin's Theory": "How
little can the hard-working wife of a degraded Australian
savage, who hardly ever uses abstract words, and can
not count above four, how little can such a woman exert
her self-consciousness, or reflect on the nature of her
own existence ! " And in Darwin's resume of his chapters
on the intellectual powers of man and animals, he says,
on page 126 : " If it could be proved that certain high
mental powers, such as the formation of general con-
cepts, self-consciousness, etc., were absolutely peculiar
to man, which seems extremely doubtful, it is not im-
probable that these qualities are merely the incidental
results of other highly-advanced intellectual faculties:

THE NATURO - THILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 119

and these again mainly the result of the continued use
of a perfect language."

If Darwin is thus not able to show us in the animal
world a single real analogy which at all approaches self-
consciousness, and, in order to supply this want, must
have recourse to the purely hypothetical possibility that
it is not certain whether an old hunting-dog does not
reflect upon the past joys of the chase ; if by the uncer-
tainty of the expression that self-consciousness might be
an ''^ accoTTvpanying'*'^ result of other faculties, he never- [
theless gives us to understand that he can not find thef
sufficient cause of the origin of self-consciousness ini
those other faculties ; and, finally, if he closes the last !
mentioned quotation with a sentence which has for its
premise the wholly illogical thought that language might
have been able to reach "a high state of development"
before the origin of self-consciousness and without its
assistance : then, indeed, the result of all this certainly
is that he has given no adequate consideration to the
specific nature of self-consciousness. It is only under
this supposition that it is possible for him to say : " Nev-
ertheless, the difierence in mind between man and the
higher animals, great as it certainly is, is one of degree
and not of quality." The authors may possibly not agree
in the definitions of the idea of self-consciousness — we
ourselves perhaps are only an additional example in con-
firmation of this fact — ; but whatever the definition may
be, the fact itself remains, that self-consciousness does
not stand as one of the intellectual faculties beside the
others and coordinate with them, but, as an entirely new
form of being, introduces a qualitatively new and val-
uable factor into the subject. That which precedes the

120 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

origin of self-consciousness — the purely conscious and
not yet self-conscious life of the soul, as it shows itself
with higher animals, especially with mammals — may
have been the necessary condition and requirement for
the origin of self-consciousness. It certainly has been
so ; and from this point of view, all these psychological
studies of animals and psycho-physical investigations
which are a favorite object of modem science, have a
high value ; but what has been called into existence by
means of conditions is not on that account the pro-
duct of those conditions. This very fact is one of the
greatest mistakes of most of the modem evolution theo-
ries : that very often — and especially where they wish
to draw metaphysical conclusions from their scientific
results or hypotheses — they confound condition and
basis with cause.

Now it appears to us that, in quite an analogous way,
Darwin overlooks or contests the fact that with free
m/yrdl, self-determination something specifically new
comes into existence. He certainly discusses the origin
of the moral qualities of man more in detail than he
does the origin of his intellectual qualities. He derives
them, in their first beginnings, from the fixity, trans-
mission and increase of the social impulses and instincts.
These, being the basis of the whole moral development,
and leading in their more mature form to love and to
sympathy, originated by natural selection ; and the other
moral qualities, such as moral sense and conscience, pro-
gressed more by the efiect of custom, by the power of
reflection:, instruction, and religion, than by nat-
ural selection. Higher and lower, common and special,
permanent and transitory instincts come into collision

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 121

with one another. The dissatisfaction of man when any
of the lower, special, and transitory instincts have over-
come the higher, common and permanent, and the reso-
lution to act differently for the future, is conscience.
Darwin considers that one a moral being who is capable
of comparing with one another his past and future
actions and motives, of approving some of them and of
disapproving others; and the fact that man is the only
creature who can with certainty be ranked as a moral
being is, according to Darwin, the greatest-of all differ-
ences between man and animals.

Here, again, the whole central point of the investi-
gation as to the origin of man does not lie in the ques-
tion of the origin of the instincts between which the
moral subject, acting in moral self-determination, has to
choose. For it is clear that the teginnings of these in-
stincts are also present in the animal world. But the
main question is, how did this facultj' and necessity of
choosing, this conscience and responsibility, this " moral
sense,'' as Darwin calls it, originate ? Now to this ques-
tion we have a plain answer in the before-mentioned
utterances of Dai* win: It originated not as SLprodicct of
the social instincts — it only has these instincts for its
preceding condition, object and instrument; but it origi-
nated as a product of other agencies, which act upon
these impulses and instincts, operate with them, choose
between them; and as these other agencies Darwin
mentions the high development of the intellectual pow-
ers. That this is his opinion, we can clearly see from
an expression with which he introduces his essay on the
origin of "moral sense": ''The following proposition
seems to me in a high degree probable — namely, that

' « •*

ri^ -*»v •

122 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social
instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or con-
science, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as
well^ or nearly as well developed^ as m inan^ TThese in-
tellectual powers which moral feeling and conscience
require at their birth, are certainly, according to Darwin
the power to distinguish oneself as subject from one's
impulses and instincts, and to choose between them; Le.^
self-consciousness. We shall have to admit fully this
intimate connection between moral self-determination
and self-consciousness; but we must admit, at the same
time, that moral self-determination — this new form of
activity in which moral activity distinguishes itself from
all merdy instinctive activity — finds its sufiicient explana-
tion in the previous stage of the animal world as little as
self-consciousness; and that moral self-determination has
the condition and presupposition, but not the cause, of
its existence in that which is also found iq the previous
stage of the animal world. The proof that the origin of
moral self-determination finds its sufficient explanation
in that which the previous stage of the animal world also
ha«, would appear to have been given by Darwin only
when he had succeeded in explaining the origin of self-
consciousness from animal intelligence; but that he did
not succeed in it, we think we have clearly shown. On
the other hand, we willingly admit that the study of the
social and all other instincts and impulses which are
common to man and animals, and which in man form
the object and instrument of his moral activity, has for
us the highest interest, inasmuch as the only problem is
to explain the conditions and prerequisites of moral self-
determination — or, historically speaking, the conditions

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 123

and prerequisites of the origin of morally acting beings.
Furthermore we have to say here also that condition and
prerequisite are not identical with cause, and it is pre-
cisely the ccmse of moral responsibility and of the origin (
of such morally responsible beings, which has not yet ^
been discovered by the Darwinian theory.

The followera of Darwin enter still less into the dis-
cussion of the question as to the origin of self-conscious-
ness and of moral self-determination. Hackel — who, in
his " Natural History of Creation " and in his " Anthro-
pogeny," expounds his whole evolution theory in all its
antecedent conditions and consequences — has, indeed,
much to say of the different faculties of the soul of man
and animals. He trices these faculties in the case of man
down to the lowest state of the most degraded races, and
in the case of animals from the kermes up to the bee,
from the lancelet-fish to the dog, ape, elephant and horse;
and he also treats of the so-called a prioH knowledge
which "arose only by long-enduring transmission,,
by inheritance of acquired adaptations of the
brain, out of originally empiric or experiential
knowledge a posteriori^^'* (Vol. H, 345). But we look
in vain in his works for a treatment of the question as
to the origin of the Ego — of self-consciousness. No-
where does he enter into the analysis of the psychologi-
cal ideas; he only compares the psychical utterances of
different creatures, and thinks the whole problem solved
when he says: "The mental differences between the
most stupid placental animals (for instance, sloths and
armadillos) and the most intelligent animals of the same
group (for instance dogs and apes) are, at any rate,
much more considerable than the differences in the in-

124 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

tellectual life of dogs, apes, aad men." Or: "If
these brutish parasites are compared with the men^
tally active and sensitive ants, it will certainly be admit-
ted that the psychical differences between the two
are much greater than those between the highest and
lowest mammals — between beaked animals, pouched
animals and armadillos, on the one hand, and dogs, apes,
men, on the other." The fact that in the human indi-
vidual consciousness and self-consciousness are gradually
developed, is to him a proof that in the organic kingdom
also consciousness and self-consciousness came into exis-
tence gradually, and, indeed, hand-in-hand with the
development of the nervous system; and with this result
he thinks that he has relieved himself from the task of
showing the " how " of the origin of self-consciousness.
This becomes clearly evident from a remark about the
origin of consciousness, in his "Anthropogeny,"
where he says that, if DuBois-Reymond had thought
that consciousness is developed, he would no longer have
held its origin to be a thing beyond the limits of human
capacity. Hackel likewise seems to regard the question
of the origin of moral self-determination as solved or
rejepted, if only freedom is denied — ^which, indeed, is
repeatedly done by him.

A similar defect in the treatment of this question by
evolutionists we find in the works of Oscar Schmidt,
Gustav Jager, and others. ^ Even Emil DuBois-Rey-
mond, who, in his celebrated and eloquent lecture on
"The Limits of the Knowledge of Nature," given be-
fore the assembly of scientists at Leipzig, 18Y2, asserts
so energetically that the origin of sensation and con-
sciousness is inexplicable (see next section), seems to

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 126

take the origin of self-consciousness for granted, and as
needing no further explanation, if only consciousness is
once present

Since, then, the scientists leave us without a sufficient
answer to the question respecting the origin of self-con-
sciousness and of moral self-determination, we shall have
to turn to the philosophers. Here, indeed, we find rich
definitions and genetic analyses, but none that lead us
any farther than to the information that consciousness is
the necessary condition of self-consciousness ; that ani-
mal instinct is the necessary antecedent condition
of moral self-determination. Yet in the works of
these very philosophers who are inclined to a mechanical
and " monistic" view of the world, we find that they di-
rectly avoid the question as to the origin of self-conscious-
ness and of moml self-determination. As soon as they
are led near it, in the course of reasoning in their works,
they suddenly turn aside again to the quite difierent
questions of the connection between brain and soul, be-
tween physical and psychical, external and internal pro-
cesses, etc. Evidently they feel that with this question
they have arrived at the weak point of their system.
That here is a weak point, we clearly see in the case of
D. F. Strauss, a leading advocate of modem naturalism,
and the greatest philosophic scholar of that school. It
is true, in his " Postscript as Preface," as we saw before,
he mentions Uie origin of self-consciousness as one of
the points which need special explanation ; but he seems
to have made this acknowledgnient more with the pur-
pose of showing that DuBois - Reymond, in admitting
the origin of selif-consciousness to be explainable, has no
longer any reason to contest the expllcability of the

126 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

origin of sensation and consciousness ; for in his work
on "The Old Faith and the New," he did not enter into
that question at all. On the other hand, he makes in
his last-mentioned work a remarkable confession. In
answering the question— how do we determine our rule
of life ? — he comes to speak of the position of man in
nature, tnices a law of progress in nature, and says : " In
this cumulative progression of life, man is also com-
prised, and, moreover, in such wise that the organic
plasticity of our planet (provisionally, say some natural-
ists, but that we may fairly leave an open question) cul-
minates in him. As nature can not go higJier^ she would
go inwards. * To be reflected within itself,' was a very
good expression of Hegel's. Nature felt herself already
in the animal, but she wished to know herself also."
But still stronger is the following expression : " /n
man^ nature endea/oored not merely to exalt^ hut to tran-
scend Kerself.^^ In §1, Chap. 11, we shall have to speak
of this important acknowledgment of teleology in
nature, which such an antagonist of teleology as Strauss
makes in the above-quoted remarks about a progress in
nature and a will of nature; but here we are more
interested in the equally remarkable acknowledgment
of the fact that man can not be explained from nature
alone — ^that he is something which transcends nature.
For that (according to Strauss) nature, in originating
man, not only intended to transcend herself, but really
did transcend herself and, that she succeeded in her in-
tention, we can infer from the moral precept which
Strauss gives : "Do not forget for a moment, that thou
art human ; not merely a natural production."

The result of our investigation, therefore, is that

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS.

127

with self-consciousness and free moral self-determination
something specifically new came into existence which
had its antecedent condition in a previous state of exist-
ence, but has not yet found its sufficient explanation in
this antecedent state.

§ 2. The Origin of Sensation and of Consciousness.

The limits of our knowledge show themselves still
more clearly in the attempts to explain the origin of con-
sciousness and its lowest form — sensation. Self- con-
sciousness is without doubt ideally nearer to conscious-
ness in this, that both are an immaterial activity ; and
yet we found no demonstrable bridge which leads from
consciousness to self-consciousness. Still broader is the
gulf between the material and the immaterial, between
the unconscious and the conscious, — or, to describe the
two realms with names which bring them nearest togeth-
er, between that which is without sensation and that
which has sensation : a gulf to bridge which philosophy
also has vainly exerted its utmost efforts, as has been
Well known since the "supernatural assistance" of
Descartes and the " preestablished harmony" of Leib-
nitz. Wherein lies the real necessity that there should
be sensation? How does the material become some-
thing that is felt ? What is the demonstrable cause (not
the condition,* but the cause) of a sentient subject ? To
these questions, every science up to the present day lacks
an answer. As is well known, DuBois-Reymond, in his
previously-mentioned lecture upon "The Limits of our
Knowledge of Nature," declares the origin of sensation
and of consciousness to be one of two limits, beyond

128

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

which we have not only to say ^^ignoramus^^'* but ^Hg^wr-

In abstractor we mi^ht think of two attempts at
bridging over this gulf : the first one is that we try to
transform sensation itself into something material, and
the other is that we attribute sensation also to that which,
according to our observation, seems to be without sen-
sation ; namely, to matter and its elements, the atoms.
Both of these attempts have been made — the former by
D. F. Strauss in his " The Old Faith and the New," and
by the Englidi philosopher, Herbert Spencer, in his
" First Principles of Philosophy ; " the latter, first pointed
out by Schopenhauer, was taken up and farther devel-
oped by Zollner in his work, "Ueber die Natur der
Kometen" (" Nature of the Comets "), Leipzig, Engel-
mann,1872,andwith special acutenessby an "Anonymus"
in the work : "Das Unbewusste vom Standpunkt der
Physiologic und Descendenztheorie" (" The Unconscious
from the Standpoint of Physiology and Descent Theory"),
Beriin, Duncker, 1872.

Strauss says, in the previously-mentioned work:
"If, under certain conditions, motion is trans-
formed into heat, why may it not, under other conditions,
be transfornied into sensation ? " And Herbert Spencer
says, in his "First Principles of Philosophy," (page 217):
" Various classes of facts thus unite to prove that the
law of metamorphosis, which holds among' the physical
forces, holds equally between them and the mental
forces. Those modes of the unknowable which we call
motion, heat, light, chemical affinity, etc., are alike
transformable into each other, and into those modes of
the unknowable which we distinguish as sensatioti, emo-

- ^--^

'i •;>'

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 129

tion, thought : these, in their turns, being directly or
indirectly retransformable into the original shapes.'-

But motion— even the iSnest material motion, that of
ether, (which, in consequence of the very important dis-
covery of the conservation of force and of the mechan-
ical equivalent of heat, made by Robert von Mayer, at
present is taken to be heat) — is so decidedly a material
process, the sensation of motion is so decidedly a reflex
of the material in something immaterial, that the assertion
of a transformation of motion into sensation seems to us
only to change the point of view, and not to explain the
diflference, but to efface it. And we think that the appeal
of Strauss from his contempoi'aries, who do not under-
stand him, to posterity, who would understand him better
and esteem him, has but little prospect of being opera-
tive. '

If that which has sensation and that which has it not,
are to be brought genetically near one another, and hence
iiie difference between the two at the point where the
lowest sentient being has found its first existence, is to be
made void or at least bridged over, then it is much more
reasonable, and also in the line of Strauss's solution, to
deny the difference between that which has sensation
and that which has it not, and to do this in the sense in
which we also declare that to be sentient which we have
hitherto been accustomed to regard as without sensation ;
and we should likewise attribute sensation to the orig-
inal elements of the world, be they called atoms or
whatever one may wish. This is done by ZoUner and by
the before mentioned "Anonymus. " • This conclusion is
logical ; it is even the only possible conclusion, if we
conce start from the axiom that the new, which comc:>

130 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

into existence, must necessarily be explainable from
agencies previously active, and known to or imagined by
us through abstractions and hypotheses. Zollner is cer-
tainly right when, in his work which appeared before the
lecture of DuBois-Reymond, he puts the alternative,
*' either to renounce forever the conceivableness of the
phenomena of sensation, or hypothetically to add to
the common qualities of matter one more, which places the
simplest and most elementary transactions of nature
under a process of sensation, legitimately connected with
it ; " as also .when he says (page 327) : " We may regard
the intensity of these sensations (of matter) as little and
unimportant as we wish ; but the hypothesis of their
existence is, according to my conviction, a necessary
condition, in order to comprehend the really existing
phenomena of sensation in nature." Only we shall do'
well to choose the first alternative for the present, and,
with DuBois-Reymond, answer the question as to the
explanation of the origin of sensation with an ^^ignm^a-
wz/«"; indeed, we shall take a surer road with his
^^ igiwrahitnus'^^ \haiW by a plunge into that bottomless
ocean of hypotheses — in spite of the protest of Hackel,
who (Anthrop., page XXI) sees that scientist who has the
courage to admit the limits of our knowledge, on account
of this ^^ ig7ior(ibimm''\ walking in the army of the
** black International-', and "marshalled under the black
flag of the hierarchy," together with "spiritual servitude
and falsehood, want of reason and barbarism, supersti-
tion and retrogression", and fighting, "spiritual freedom
and truth, reason- and culture, evolution and progress."
For a solution of the question which simply denies
all sharply-marked differences in the world, and explains

- \

*

:c;^

-•'W

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 131

the new, which comes into existence with sensation, by
the assertion that this new element is not new, but was
already present, and that it exists everywhere, only we
do not see it everywhere, — such a solution seems to us
not to be the true way to interpret the problem of the
sphinx. Even Ed. von Hartmann seems to infringe the
impartiality of the true observer, when, in his '' Philos-
ophy of the Unconscious," he attributes sensation to
plants. But when Zollner says (p. 326): ^^ AU the labors
of natural heiiigs\jmA^ as the connection indicates, of all,
even of inorganic natural beings] are determined by
like and dislike;" and when "Anonymus" attributes sensa-
tion to all atoms and to all complexities composed of
them, even to stone, then all reasonable conception of
natural things and processes certainly vanishes into thin
air.

It will be remembered, however, that in treating
the question of the origin of self-consciousness, although
we were not able to solve the problem, nevertheless we
had to ascribe high value to the investigation of all psy-
chical processes on the low stage of sensation and con-
sciousness, since they show us not the cause, but the
condition and basis, of self-consciousness. Likewise, in
the question as to the origin of sensation and of con-
sciousness, although we are not able to solve it, we will
willingly admit that we observe, even in that which has
no sensation, qualities and processes which furnish the
absolutely necessary condition and basis for sensation.
For the same reason, we will also admit the manifold analo-
gies of sensation which we observe in that which is without
sensation. The whole system of symbols in nature which
fills our treasury of words and penetrates, in a thousand-

I

. »*»

1 '

'^i'-^

. ;»■'

J9

132 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

fold way, our scientific and popular, our poetical and
prosaic speech, our thoughts and feelings, bears witness to
the fact that that which is without sensation is also a pre-
paratory step to sensation, and feeling both active and
passive springs from it. However, a preparatory step,
as such, is not necessarily the cause ; and the fact and
the acknowledgment of a correlation is not on that
account an explanation.

§ 3. The Origin of Life.

The third problem to be solved is the origin of life.
As is well known, Darwin himself makes no attempt at
explaining this problem, but is satisfied with -the idea
that life was infused into one or a few forms by the
Creator (''Origin of Species," 6 ed.,p. 429). His investiga-
tions and theories only begin where organic life, in its
first and lowest forms, is already in existence.

But lately there have been made, in the realm of the
organic, discoveries of beings which take the lowest con-
cieivable round on the ladder of organisms, and which in
their form and structure are so simple that from them to
the inorganic there seems to be but a short step. We
can no longer mention as belonging to the bridges which
are said to lead from the organic w6rld to the inorganic,
the often-named hathyhiits^ discovered by Huxley, and
so strongly relied upon for the mechanical explanation
of life — a slimy net-like growth, which covers the rocks
in the great depths of the ocean. For after scientists
like K. E. von Baer and others had already declared it
probable that this bathybius is only a precipitate of
organic relics, no less a person than the discoverer of the
bathybius, in the "Annals of Natural History," 1875,

t'-'

*• <■ '

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEBiENTS. 133

•

and in the *' Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science,"
1875, has suggested that the whole discovery
is but gypsum, which was precipitated in a gelatinous
condition. Likewise the utterances concerning the sim-
plicity and lack of structure of the lowest organisms,
are to be accepted only with great reservation ; for most
of these organisms show very differently and very dis-
tinctly stamped structures ; of this fact^ anyone may
easily convince himself, who has had the opportunity of
observing with the microscope low and lowest organ-
isms, and to admire their striking and manifold forms.
Neveilheless, there are monera whose structure seems to
be nothing but a living clod without kernel and cover,
and which in that respect represent the lowest conceiv-
able form of organic being and life.

Now, relying on these discoveries, as well as upon the
successful demonstration, by inorganic means, of organic
acids in chemistry, and starting from the supposition
that the fii'st appearance of life must necessarily be ex-
plained by those agencies which are already active in the
inorganic nature, many scientists have attempted the so-
called niec/ianical explanation of life. This attempt has
been made most logically and systematically by Hackel.
He says that organic matter^ organic form^ and organic
motion^ in the lowest stages of the organic, which are
almost the only ones to be taken into consideration
when the problem of the origin of life is discussed, con-
tain nothing at all which does not also pertain to the
inorganic. In his opinion, organic matter is an albumin-
ous carbon combination, of which we have to presuppose
that, like all chemical combinations, under certain phys-
ical and chemical conditions it can also arise in the realm

f .• »_- - ■ *

134 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

of the inorganic in a purely chemical and mechanical
way. Organic ybr/Ti which, in its lowest stages, is so
simple, like the moneron and the bathybius, and which
stands still lower than a cell, is, moreover, something
which there is no difficulty in explaining from inorganic
matter. Finally, organic motion which alone is the last
and lowest characteristic of the organic in its lowest
stage — in which the process of life properly consists, and in
which, therefore, we have to recognize the punctum
salieiis of the whole question — ^is only an increase and
complication of the merely mechanical motion of the
inorganic, likewise explainable by mechanical causes.
This view Hackel expounds in the thirteenth and partly
also in the first chapter of his *' Natural History of Cre-
ation," and explains the origin of the first and most sim-
ple organic individuals either through what he • calls
autogony in an inorganic fluid, or through plasraogony
in an organic fluid — a plasma or protoplasma. In fact,
according to him, the only correct idea is that all matter
is provided with a soul, that inorganic and organic
nature is one, that all natural bodies known to us are
equally animated, and that the contrast commonly drawn
between the living and the dead world does not exist.
This is but a repetition, in a more rhetorical way, of the
same idea which "Anonymus" expressed in discussing the
question as to the origin of sensation.

DuBois-Reymond — who, in his lecture at Leipzig,
pronounced the origin of sensation and of conscioiisness
a problem of natural science, never to be solved — is also
of the opinion that the explanation of life from mere
mechanism of atoms is very probable, and only a ques-
tion of time. It is well known that the experimental

THE NATURO - PHHiOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 136

attempts at originating the organic through chemistry
are at present pui-sued with an eagerness that can have
its stimuhis only in the hope of success.

It is clear that the main point of the question does
not lie in organic matter or in organic form, but in
organic motion^ for even the specific of the organic /br//^
originates only first through organic motion of life. If,
therefore, life Is to be explained from mechanical causes,
it must also be shown that the merely mechanical motion
of inorganic matter produces that motion which we know
as organic motion, and hmo it produces it. The idea of
'' increase and complication of the inorganic, merely
mechanical motion," with which Hackel throws a bridge
from the living to the lifeless or from the organic to the
inorganic,' does not yet give us that proof; it seems rath-
er to be one of those pompous phrases with which people
hide their ignorance and make the uncritical multitude
believe that the explanation is found: a manipula-
tion against which, among others, Wigand, in his great
work, repeatedly protests, as also does the Duke of Ar-
gyll in his lecture on ''Anthrof)omorphism in Theology^"
having especially in his mind the deductions of Spencer.
For we may review the whole* known series of mechan-
ical motions and their mechanical causes, and imagine
their mechanical increase and their mechanical complica-
tion the largest f)ossible; and still the life-motion of the
organic will never result therefrom. If such a keen
psychical and physiological investigator and thinker, and
such an authority in the realm of the motions of atoms
and molecules, as Gustav Theodor Fechner — *'Einige
Ideen zur Schopfungs- und Entwicklungsgeschichtc der
Organismen" ("Some Ideas about the History of the

<»,

136 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

Creation and Development of Organisms"), Leipzig,
1873, p. 1, f. — can find the whole lasting and effectual
difference between the organic and inorganic in nothing
else than in the way and manner of motion — ^namely,
that the motipn of the orgcmic molecules is different
from that of the inorganic molecules — and when he
traces this difference with mathematical exactness, then
an assertion which simply denies that difference, without
attempting to show the identity of the two motions, to
say nothing of proving this identity, is nothing more
than a clear evidence that the mechanical theory has not
yet succeeded in explaining the origin of life, and that
those scientists who so haughtily look down upon the
abuse of ^^vital jpower^'^'^ to the efficacy of whiph their
antagonists began to resort when their knowledge came
to an end, make exactly the same abuse with their
^^ mechanism^ That organic motion, even the organic
motion of molecules, once present^ comes into dependence
on the well known laws of mechanism, we naturally will
not deny ; any more than that the human body, when
serving the will of the mind, follows in its motions the
laws of physiology and mechanism.

Prey er seems to make a mistake similar to that of those
who efface sensation and motion, when, in an essay on the
hypothesis of the origin of life, in the *' Deutsche Rund-
schau," Vol. I, 7, he even effaces the difference between
life and sensation, and simply identifies life and motion.
"Self-motion, called life, and inorganic movement of
bodies by agencies outside of themselves, are but quan-
titatively, intensively, or gradually different forms of
motion ; not in their innermost being different. * * *
Our will changes many kinds of motion into heat, makes

:J.5^

>- - "^r>«

THE NATURO- PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 137

cold metal to be red-hot simply by hammering. * * *
Likewise inversely, as the law of the conservation of
force must require, a part of the eternal heat of the
metal can be now and forever transposed into the living
motion of our soul."% This whole manner of investiga-
tion and proof is one of those numerous unconscious
logical fallacies which, introduced by Hegel, have grad-
ually attained a cei-taiu title by possession. From
the observation of a process, they abstract a char-
acteristic, as general as possible, — as, for instance, from
the observation of life the characteristic of motion ; then
they find that the process has the characteristic in com-
mon with still other processes — as, for instance, the self-
motion of the living has the general characteristic of
motion in common with the objective motion of the
lifeless ; and then they persuade themselves that the
process which they try to explain is really explained by
having found a quality of this process as comprehensive
as possible. And in order to hide the falsity of the con-
clusion, they also give to the general idea, which they
have found to be a characteristic of that process, the
same name whith the special process has, — as, for in-
stance, they call motion life, no matter whether it is a
motion of itself or a being moved, no matter whether
it is performed from within or in consequence of an
impulse from without; and then they say: "Behold,
life is explained; life is nothing but motion." But it
can be readily seen that life is also motion, and has there-
fore this characteristic in common with everything which
is moved ; but that the specific of that motion called life
— namely, self-motion in consequence of an impulse
renewing itself from within, and, as Fechner shows, self-

V'

138

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

motion in a rotatory direction of the molecules, precisely
the same thing which in distinction from other motions
we call life, — is not explained, but simply ignored.

There is still another bold hypothesis which we have
to mention — namely, thxit the organic germs were once
fhrmon from other spheres upon the earth hy oeroUtes,
Years ago this idea was declared by Helmholtz to be
scientifically conceivable ; then it was fonnally asserted
and brought into general notice by Sir William Thomp-
son, in his opening address before the annual assembly
of the British Association at Edinburgh, in 1871, but
rejected as formally and materially unscientific by ZoU-
ner, in the preface to his work, " Nature of Comets,''
and again defended by Helmholtz in his preface to the
second volume of a ti^anslation of Thompson and Tait's
Theoretical Physics. However, this hypothesis also only
defers the solution of the question, and, supi^osing its
scientific possibility, leads either to the remoter question,
how life did originate in those other spheres, or to the
metaphysical assertion of the eternity of life and of the
eternal continuity of the living in the world, and shows
therewith veiy clearly the impossibility of its explana-
tion.

This inexplicability would still exist, if what is quite
improbable should happen, namely, that the experimental
attempts at artificially producing organic life should be
successful, and if thus the question as to the generatio
OBquivoca^ which during the past decades so much alarmed
the minds of scientists and theologians, should be exper-
imentally solved and answered in the affirmative. For
in view of the hopes of a possible explanation of life,
which is expected to be the reward for the success of

V

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 139

these attempts, Zollner is fully right in saying : "That
the scientists to-day set such an extremely high value on
the inductive proof of the generatio cequivoca^ is the most
significant symptom of how little they have made them-
• selves acquainted with the first principles of the theory
of knowledge. For, suppose they should really succeed
in observing the origin of organic germs under condi-
tions entirely free from objection to any imaginable
communication with the atmosphere, what could they
answer to the assertion that the organic germs, in refer-
ence to their extension, are of the order of ether-atoms,
and, with these, press through the intervals of the
material molecules which form the sides of our appara-
tus?"

How little life is explained, at least according to the
present state of our knowledge, also follows from the
insufficiency of all attempts at defining it. The latest and
most thorough attempt at such a definition of life, with
which we are familiar, is that made by Herbert Spencer
in his "First Principles", § 25, and in his "Principles of
Biology," Vol. I, Part I, Chap. 4 and 5. Having made
thorough investigations, he arrives at the general form-
ula: "Life is the continuous adjustment of internal rela-
tions to external relations." To this definition we will
not make the objection that it is nothing but a logical
abstraction from the common quality of all processes
and phenomena of life ; for it certainly lies in the nature
of a definition that it can be nothing else but that.
Nevertheless, we will state that such a definition of life
not only does not lead us any nearer to the comprehen-
sion of its processes, and especially of the richness and
the organization of its forms and functions, but that it

140 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

' clearly shows us how little the origin of life is explained.
For this very definition necessarily and obviously leads
us to the questions : Whence do those internal relations
originate, whence their adjustment to external rela-

* tions, and whence the continuity of this adjustment?
The answer to these questions this definition still owes us.
Therefore, not only self-consciousness and freedom,
not only sensation and consciousness, but also life and
the organic, remain a phenomenon which — at least,
according to the present state of our knowledge and
reasoning— enters into the realm of the world of phenom-
ena as something new that can not be explained from the
foregoing, although it presupposes the foregoing as the
condition^ not the cause, of its appearance ; and no
matter whether we have to think of the modality of its
origin as a sudden or as a gradual one.

§ 4. The Elements of the Worlds the Theory of Atom^^ and
the Mechanical View of the World.

The investigating and thinking mind, when it at-
tempts to explain the appearances and forms of that
which exists, finds itself led further and further back,
until it finally arrives at the last elements of the world
and of matter. Whether we take the problem of life as
solved or unsolved, the living has matter and its subor-
dination to the efficiency of all its chemical and mechan-
ical powers in common with the lifeless ; and the organic,
in its first beginnings, stands extraordinarily near to, and
is grown on the ground of, the inorganic, — if not accord-
ing to the category of cause and efiect, still accord-
ing to that of condition and consequence, of basis and
structure. Therefore we stand at last before the ques-

THE NATURO- PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 141

tion of the final elements of matter, which, indeed, con-
stitutes organic as well as inorganic bodies.

The answer to this question is attempted by the
theory of atoms : the doctrine which teaches that the
whole material world is composed of simple particles
which are no farther divisible, and from whose juxta-
position the chemical elements — and, in respect to their
other forms of existence and combination, the whole
world of bodies, with all their forms, states, and changes,
— are composed.

This theory has not only the practical value that the
physical (and especially the chemical) sciences can make
and use their formulas most easily under the supposition
of such simple primitive elements ; but it also has the
great theoretical merit' that it hits broken down the old
barriers between matter and forces and^has thus promoted
considerably our method of regarding the world of mate-
rial substances. Toward this result, scientists and phi-
losophers — and, among the latter, the thinkers and inves-
tigators of both views of the world, the theistic and the
pantheistic, the ideal and the materialistic, —have worked
with equal merit, and have equally enjoyed its fruits,
with perhaps the single exception of so pure a materi-
alist us Ludwig BUchner, who, it seems, does not like to
give up his old doctrine of force and matter as the two
inseparable, equivalent^, and equally eternal elements of
the universe. That matter itself, even when looked upon
from a purely physical standpoint, has an incoi-poreal
principle ; that the whole world of bodies, as such, has
but a phenomenal character ; that not force and matter
are the two empirico-physical principles of the world,
but that matter itself must be a product of elementary

142 • THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

force active in the atoms ; these doctrines have now
become pretty nearly common property of natural sci-
ence and philosophy. Investigators who like Wilhelm
Wundt, rise from natural science to philosophy, or such
as take their starting-point from philosophy — ^whether
they be theists, like Lotze, I. H. Fichte, Ulrici, or occupy
the ground of a pessimistic pantheism, as does Eduard
von Hartmann,— all share this view and its fruits.

But in spite of all these preferences for the theory
of atoms, we should not forget that it still has but hypo-
thetical value — ^that it is but an idea of limits, which
indicates, where the scientifically perceptible ceases, and
that every attempt at moving this limit still farther on
must either fail and lead into unsolvable contradictions,
or, if successful, only leads to new difficulties and
unsolved problems.

Already within that realm in which the theory of
atoms is a supplemental hypothesis directly indispensa-
ble at present — ^. ^., within their application in physical
sciences — we meet suppositions which raise great doubts
and difficulties. Such a scientific difficulty occurs when the
atomism of the natural philosophers supposes a double
complexity of atoms, material atoms and atoms of ether:
complexities which both penetrate one another, and are
supposed to follow partly totally different, partly the
same, elementary laws of force. Material atoms are subor-
dinate to the law of gravitation, while atoms of ether
are not; and yet both act legitimately upon one another,
— ^as, for instance, when heat passes into motion and
motion into heat, which certainly presupposes a law of
power acting in common for both. Another difficulty
lies in the atomism of the chemists; and still another

THE NATURO PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 143

in the divergency of the aims at which the physical the-
ory of atoms on the one hand and the chemical theory
of atoms on the other seem to point. Chemistry is
inclined to explain the difference of its numerous ele-
ments from the original difference of the atoms ; and
yet it is not at all certain that the elements of chemistry
themselves are not composed of still more simple and
less numerous primary elements. Many indications
seem to point to such primary elements which are more
simple in number and quality; and investigators even
mention an element — hydrogen — in the direction of
which we have to look for the way that will lead us to
those primitive elements of matter. The divergency of
aims, finally, consists in the fact that physical atomism
prevailingly f)oints to a conformity of the atoms of
bodies ; chemical atomism, on the contrary, — at least,
according to its present state, — points to a dissimilarity
among these.

The hypothetical and problematical nature of the
theory of atoms strikes us still more clearly when we
try to analyze it philosophically. First, we meet that
antinomy which we always find where we try to pass
beyond the limits of our empirical knowledge by means
of conception. For, if the atoms still occupy space,
we can not understand why they should not be fur-
ther divisible, and if they do not occupy space, we
can not understand how any sum of that which does
not occupy space, can finally succeed in filling space. It
is true, this very antinomy has led to the overcoming of
that dualism of force and matter which so long enchained
science, and the overcoming of which we greet as a pro-
gress of our theoretical knowledge of nature. We no

144 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

longer look upon the atoms as material elements, but as
centres of force. The antinomy has the further merit
that, in the realm of the knowledge of nature, it brings to
our consciousness, the great advantage of a concrete per-
ception and reasoning over purely logical abstractions.
For Ulrici, in his "God and Nature," is right in calling
our attention to the fact that we must think about the
atoms, not in an abstractly logical and an abstractly
mathematical way, but concretely ; that we have to con-
sider them, not as mere quantities, but as qualities ; and
that we can then easily arrive at the perception of some-
thing which occupies space, and which therefore, accord-
ing to abstract conclusions of logic and mathematics,
could still be thought of as divisible in abstractor but
which, even as a consequence of its quality ^ of its con-
crete natural form, is no longer divisible in reality.
Nevertheless, in spite of all these remarkable attempts
at overcoming the difficulties of the theory of atoms, that
antinomv retunfis as often as we undertake to make that
clearly perceptible which we have at last gained a partial
conception of ; and thus shows us, from this side also,
that even with the theory of- atoms we have arrived at the
limit where not only our observation, but also the pre-
ciseness and certainty of our conceptions, ceases.

By the atomic theory, we do not gain anything for
the ultimate explanation of the world and its contents,
not even if its present hypothetical value should be
changed into a complete demonstration. For the whole
theory but removes the question as to the origin of
things from their sensible appearance to the elements of
that appearance, and leaves us standing just as helpless
before the elements as before the appearances. For

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 145

whence does the whole richness. of the appearances in
the world come ? If the atoms are all alike, and their
laws of force the simplest we can imagine, then their
grouping into all the developments and formations of
which we observe such an infinite and^regularly arranged
abundance, is not less unexplained than if we had not
gbne back to the theory of atoms at all. But if the
atoms and their laws of force are different, the diflSculty
is not simplified, but doubled. For, first, the theory
then owes us an answer to the questions wherein the
difference of the atoms consists and whence it comes ;
and, second, th« question we have to consider in suppos-
ing a uniformity of the atoms, is not disposed of or
answered — the question, namely, as to the causes which
bring these different atoms to^eth^r to form precisely
those complexities of atoms which we observe as the
world of phenomena.

This insufficiency of the theory of atoms in explain-
ing the world and its contents, is another proof to us that,
however great the practical value of this theory may be
for the operations of physics and chemistry, its theoret-
ical value consists essentially in the fact that it formu
lates more accurately the perception of the limits of our
exact knowledge. Even the idea of Lotze, that the
atoms (in themselves different) are not really the final
elements of matter, but consist of still more simple but
likewise different elements, seems to us more a decora-
tion than an extension of the limits at which our percep-
tion has arrived; we stand before a double door, but find
both , dooi-s locked. We agree with DuBois-Eeymond,
when he declares, ia his before-mentioned lecture, the

impossibility .of perqeiving the last elements of the
10

146 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

world, matter and force, to be the other limit of
our knowledge of nature which, together with the im-
possibility of the explanation of the origin of sensation
and consciousness, remains forever fixed.

Likewise, the peculiar modification which G. Th.
Fechner gives to the theory of the last elements of the
world, cannot escape the charge of leaving the problem
of the world scientifically just as unsolved as before.
Fechner not only finds, as we have already mentioned,
the difierence between the organic and the inorganic in
the difierence of the mutual motions, but he also finds
that the character of organic motions is exactly the same
as that which the bodies of the universe have among
themselves in their motions. Thus he distinguishes the
cosmorgcmic motion, which is performed in the whole of
the universe, and the molecular-organic motion, which
we observe in the single organisms of the earth; he
makes God the personal, self-conscious soul of this cos-
mical organism ; and, in using the law of the tendency
to stability, with which he completes the Darwinian se-
lection theory, asserts that the organic in the whole of
the universe, as well as in the narrow sphere of single
bodies on the earth, is the first thing from which the
inorganic was separated and became gradually fixed.
Thus, in his opinion, the problem which up to the pres-
ent has occupied investigators, — ^namely, how did the
organic originate from the inorganic? — would have to
be reversed to, how did the inorganic originate from the
organic ?

Preyer would also reach a similar result with
his above-onentioned theory of the identity of life and
motion. For according to this theory, the living would

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 147

be as old and common as motion, and the organic but
the dregs of life.

We may, therefore, siay that, without regard to the fact
that neither pantheism nor theism will ever harmonize
with Fechner's solution of this contrast which gives to
God exactly the same position in the world as the soul
has in the body, natural science will cei-tainly treat with
grpat reserve a cosmo-metaphysical system which so
fully upsets all results of exact investigations into the
history of origin and development, and has no other
proof for itself than the identity, or at least the simi-
larity, of the absti-act formula according to which the
molecular motions of organisms and the cosmical motions
are performed. Although we thus have to deny to the
proof of this identity or similarity the weight which
Fechner gives to it, nevertheless it has still no small
merit, since it throws niBw and clearer light upon the old
thought, always attractive and yet so difficult to present,
— of a macrocosmus and a microcosmus, which has been
often enough treated with so much natural mysticism.

Thus, in our inquiry into the development of things, we
have successively arrived at four points, each of which
urged us to make the confession that here something new
came ihto existence, which can not be explained from the
preceding conditions of its being; these four points were:
the origin of self-conciousness, the origin of sensation
and consciousness, the origin of life, and finally the ele-
ments of the universe. Arrived at the last problem, we
see the confession of our ignorance increased to the still
more comprehensive confession that we are really not
Bble JhiHy to explain anything in the world. We are
able to perceive a uniformity of law in the states and

•-■ :\

■.'.'■: »

148 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

changes of things, and to abstract therefrom common
laws of nature ; we can observe^ single objects, and per-
ceive their states and changes in their connection with
one another and in their dependence on those laws. But
we are noFable to explain scientifically either the origin
of these laws or the last physical causes of the qualities
of things, which follow these laws.

We should reach the same result if we had not
started from the objective world of the existing, as we
were induced to do bj"^ our subject, but from theoretical
investigations. Here also we should iiiimediately find
ourselves in a world of relations between subject and
objefct, of a regularly arranged abundance of subjective
and objective qualities, states and processes, of which
the objective only come to our knowledge through the
medium of the subjective, and of regularly arranged
laws to which both the subjective and the objective are
commonly subordinate. But why just these arid no
other qualities of the subject and of Objects exist, wrhy
just these and no other laws reign, why just this and no
other relation takes place between the perceiving sub-
ject and the perceived object, would remain unanswered
as before.

Amidst a generation which is so fond of reveling in
the thought of an extensibn of all the limits of our
knowledge, and is inclined to proclaim as true that
which it wishes and hopes, investigators are not wholly
wanting who very 'decidedly express their consciousness
of th'rise -limits- bf bur knowledge, and at the same time
comKne it with'the inost logr<^l* siiiferitific jpeasoiliilg arid
'-inv^figatibn. Even whto in detail they reach thfefee
•litaits' from' the' nibst var^fig' jiioiiftd of iiew{ and draw

'.. ./

1 .

^ *

;• -^1:

V

. f *-•

•

''■' .

4

; "I

■ -IT.

J

-Sr

■ t

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 149

them in different directions, they all agree.in confirming
the principle that it is one of the first and most indis-
pensable conditions of successful investigation always
to be conscious of the linaits of its perception. Voices
which remind mankind of these limij:s, are.p^^'haps less
popular, for man prefers to be reminded of the advances
rather than .of the limitatipqs, qf. his.knowledge ; but they
are on that account the inpre, worthy of our gratitude,
for they keep us on the solid. ground of the attainable
from which alone sure progress in knowledge is possible.
Among such philosophers we name Ulrici, and especially
Lotze ; among scientists, in the first place, two pioneers
in their departmeHtSr— namely, in the department of the
mechanism of heat, Rpl|ert von Mayer — compare his
^'Beinerkiangen iiber dps. mechanische Aequivalent, der
Warme "(" Remarks on th^ Mechanical Equivalent pf
Heat"), and ''Ueber npthyrendige Consequenzen und
Inconsequenzen der Warmemechanik " ("Necessary Con-
sequences and Inconsequences of the Mechanism pf
Heat"),' Stuttgart, Cotta; — and in the realm of the deyel;
opment of organisms, K. E. von Baer — compare his
" Reden und kleinere Aufsatze" ("Addresses and. Es-
says"), 2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1864 and 1876. In
this connection we have already mentioned, the name of
DuBois-Reymond. Otto Kostlin published two remark-
able dissertations in this direction — " Ueber die Gfcn-
zen der Naturwissenschaft " ("Limits of Natui-al Scir
ence"), Tiibingen, Fues, 2d ed., 1874, and "Ueber natiir-
liche Entwicklung" ("Natural Development"), ib.,
1875. In the latter he ^specially cautions against
hastily confounding the laws of development of planets,
development of the organic kingdom, and development

160 THE THEORIES OF DAKWIN.

of the individual organisms. Recently, Wigand, in the
second vohime of his work already frequently mentioned,
attempts, with an extreme energy which does too little
justice to the representation and investigation of the still
unsolved problems, to formulate the limits of the know-
able.

A contrary extreme, and of its kind a still more one-
sided corrective of this too great stability, we have in those
investigators who, by reason of the great progress which
has been made in the realm of the theoretical knowl-
edge of nature, allow themselves to be drawn on to the
hope of stillcxplaining all states and processes in the world
— the spiritual and the ethic processes as well as the phys-
ical — from the pure mechanism of atoms ; and who see
in that which thus far has been mechanically explained,
the only and the infallible way of explaining all that is still
obscure. They call this view the mechanicaZ view of tlie
world ; and, as "monism," put it in opposition to the
"vitalistic, teleological, and dualistic view of the world.'*
In order to obtain a correct view of this standpoint,
we quote from Hackel's "Natural History of Cre-
ation", Vol. I, page 23, the following passage: "By
the theory of descent we are for the first time enabled
to conceive of the unity of nature in such a manner that
a mechanico-causal explanation of even the most intricate
organic phenomena, for example, the origin and struct-
ure of the organs of sense, is no more diflBcult (in a gen-
eral way) than is the mechanical explanation of any phys-
ical process ; as, for example, earthquakes, the courses
of the wind, or the currents of the ocean. We thus
anive at the extremely important conviction that alt
natural bodies which are known to us are equally ani-

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 151

mated^ that the distinction which has been made between
animate and inanimate bodies does not exist. When a
stone is thrown into the air, and falls to earth according
to definite laws, or when in a solution of salt a crystal is
formed, the phenomenon is neither more nor less a
mechanical manifestation of life than the growth and
flowering of plants, than the propagation of animals or
the activity of their senses, than the perception or the
formation of thought in man." Here crystallization,
organic life, sensation/ and formation of thoQght, are
expressly put in one line of mechanism with the falling
of a stone.

In the following section we will have occasion to dis-
cuss this view as a view of the world ; but we believe
that the presentation of this idea, and the exclusive
vindication of it as a complete view of the world, needs
just here, where we still stand on the ground of the phi-
losophy of natural perception, some critical sifting.

In the realm of material nature, mechanical explana-
tion and general explanation is directly identical ; i, ^.,
a process of nature remains obscure so long and so far
as its mechanism is not yet perceived, and in the same
degree as its mechanism is perceived, the process also is
explained. The uniformity of law in the occurrence of
events according to the causal principle in the realm of
material nature, can be approached by us in no other -
form than in that of mechanism, provided we under-
stand by mechanism an activity according to law and
which can be mathematically estimated as to size and
number. So far, therefore, every scientific investigator
in the knowledge of material nature takes his place on
the standpoint of a mechanical view of the world.

' '\-f •: ^- ■

152 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

But here we have gone to the full extent to which
we are justified in taking a mechanical view of the
world, and have fixed its limits in its own proper realm
— the realm of the scientific perception of the material
world ; even if we do not join with Wigand in resigning
scientific inquiry in that direction, and express the ex-
pectation that these limits are riot fixed and not . to be
designated in advance, but will be moved farther and
farther^ and that not only in regard to the knowledge of
the quantity of phenomena (which even Wigand, as a
scientific investigator, naturally admits), but also in re-
gard to their quality. In our researches hitherto we
have often met such limits. We have found that in the
realm of the material world such important phenomena
and processes as life are at present not yet fully ex-
plained. By the mechanical view of the world, we have
befen led back to the last elements and to the most ele-
mentary forces of matter, but have been convinced that
W^ are no longer able to find them with scientific cer-
tainty, arid that consequently not a single quality of
material existence is really explained and traced back to
its last material causes, to say nothing of the transcen-
derital causes which are entirely inaccessible to our exact
scieritific knowledge.

Now there is another realm of existence, just as large
as and, according to its value, still larger than, that of
thie liiaferial world, which, not on account of its scien-
tifi'c iriac<5essiBility, but in conformity with its own
peculiar nature, entirely withdraws itself from the me-
(iliariical view. It' is the realm of psychical life; and,
still' more decidedly and more evidently, the realTYi of
mind. As far as our Observations go, the law of caus-

k *

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 153

ality reigns here also, and here also nothing takes place
without a cause. But as here the reaha in which the
causal law reigns is no longer material nature, so even,
the ybrm in which it is active is no longer that of mechan-
ism. For we certainly cannot understand mechanical
effect to be anything else than an effect of something
material upon something material, whose iiniformity of
law can be exactly estimated mathematically as to size
and number. Now if the application of mechanism to
the psychical and spiritual realm does not express any-
thing except the cei-tainly quite insidious idea that here
also causality reigns, it is nothing else but the substitu-
tion of another idea for the word mechanism — an idea
which it never had in the entire use of language up to
thi^time, and by the substitution of which the proof
for a mechanism of the mind is not given, but surrepti-
tiously obtained in a manner similar to the before-men-
tioned attempt of Preyer, surreptitiously to obtain the
proof for the origin of life.

But if the mechanical explanation of the functions
of the mind really means that they also consist in an
effect of the material upon something material, and that,
this effect can be mathematically estimated as to size
and. number, it is an assertion which has fii-st to be
proven, but which cannot be proven and cannot be al-
lowed even as an hypothesis, as a problem for investiga-
tion, because it contradicts our whole experience. And
it contradicts not only the conclusions drawn from most
natural appearances, which, as is well known, are de-
ceitful and even tell us that the sun goes around the
earth, but it contradicts the philosophical analysis just
as much and even still more directly and decidedly than

154 THK THEORIES OF DARWIN.

the direct impression — as became clear to us at the low-
est point of contact between the material and the
psychical, viz., at sensation, when we showed the impos-
sibility of scientifically explaining the origin of sensation.
It is easy to see what facts made it altogether possi-
ble to produce such a materialistic psychology and to
give it at the first superficial view a certain appearance
of truth ; but it will not he diflScult to detect its want of
truth. According to our whole experience, the human
mind is bound to the body ; its proper activity, its whole
communication with the material and immaterial world
outside of it, even its whole mutual intercourse with the
minds of fellow-beings, is performed by means of bodily
functions which, as such, are subordinate to mechan-
ism. Therefore "physiological psychology" certainly
belongs to the most interesting of the branches of sci-
ence which at present enjoy special care, and works in
this realm, like those of Wundt, are worthy of the great-
est attention. Now if these points of contact once exist
between the material and the psychical and spiritual
processes, so that material functions causally influence
psychical and spiritual ones, and psychical and spiritual
functions similarly influence material ones, there must
also exist between the laws of material processes and
those of psychical and spiritual functions a relation
which makes possible such a mutual efiect, and we must
be able to abstract from it the existence of a common
higher law of which on the one side the material laws,
and on the other the psychical and spiritual, are but par-
tial laws. Precisely here lie the indications which
appear to favor materialism in psychology. But it is
only an appearance. For, from the acknowledgment

•&\

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 156

and scientific investigation of a reciprocal action, to an
identification of the two factoi-s which act upon one
another, is still an infinite step. If science is not even
able to identify material motion and sensation, still less
can it identify material motion and the spiritual and
ethic activities. When this is done, it is done only in
consequence of the same confounding of condition and
cause which we had to expose on the occasion of the
assertion of the possibility of explaining the origin of
life or of sensation, and of consciousness or of self-con-
sciousness. Biit we here, also willingly admit that the
realm in which causality reigns in the form of mechanism,
aims at being the support, foundation, and instrument of
another realm where causality still reigns, but mechan-
ism ceases. How far investigation may still proceed in the
direction of those interesting points and lines where both
realms touch one another in causal reciprocal action, we
do not know. We are hardly able to indicate the direc-
tion in which the investigation must proceed, and this
direction seems to be assigned to it by the idea ofAicslos-
ung.* The idea of Audosung^ which plays such an

* This word, which is of recent coinage in Germany, has been
found so incapable of being rendered by an exact English equivalent,
that it has been thought best to retain it and to give the author's own
explanation of the meaning which he desired it to express. He says,
in a note to the translator: " I was led to this idea [of Audosv,ng\ in
a small essay of Robert von Mayer (" Ueber Auslosung," 1876). After-
wards Mayer personally stated to me that he heartily approved the
emphasis I had given to this idea, and said that he had only thought
of the fact that psychical processes, like the action of the will, lo9i6n
au8 (release) physiological processes, like the action of the muscles,
and that I had carried the idea farther, in saying that psychical pro-
cesses are aiiagelost (released) by physiological processes, and that this
is a very important step farther on the way of investigation. Mayer

» -■

156 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

important rdle in physics, seems to be still fruitful for:
the knowledge of psycho-physical life : bodily functions
Ipsen avs . spiritual ones, spiritual functions bodily ones.
But so much the more clearly does this theory show the
limits of mechanism : mechanism reigns in the world
of bodies from the Ausldsungen and^to the Amtosungen,^
with which the mind induces the body to activity, and the
body the mind ; beyond these limits causality still
reigns, but no longer mechanism.

Now if thus the -mechanical view of the world has
within its own most proper realm — the realm of mate-
rial phenomena — its limits, even if they are capable of
being moved; farther ; and if it is without any scientific
acceptance in the realm of soul and mind : its usurpations
reach the highest possible degree when it pretends to

himself thought it would be necessary to call the attention to this,
when he further developed the ideas he had given in the before-men-
tioned essay ; his intention to do so was prevented by his death.

^^ Auslosung is a word originated by modern mechanical science,
and means : (1.) Slight mechanical operations of detaching and the
like, by which, another and more important action, whose forces
were heretofore restrained, can be set into aciivity .e.g., the pressure
which sets in motion a niachine, previously at rest, is Auslosung ; the
pressure on the trigger of a gun is Auslosung ; the friction of a match
which is the beginning of a great fire is Auslosung. (2.) This idea may
now be applied to chemical processes: e. g,, a glass of sugar-water
will remain sweet unless some foreign element is introduced into it,
but the ippment ijt receives a fermenting substance either by chance,
from the fur, or with intention, then the sugar water is brought into
a process of chemical decomposition, and from this there results
Auslosung; but the introduction of the fermenting agent into the
8Ugarrwater:M Auslosung. (3.) Von Mayer applies this idea to psycho-
physical relations of life, and says: when the will acting through the
agefkcy of the motor nerves sets in motion the muscles, this is Asis-^
iosung. ''—[Trans.]

THE NATURO - PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS. 157

explain the last causes of things. For from its very
nature it follows that it is only able to explain the recip-
rocal action of material things among themselves, when
these things in their qualities, or the causes of their
qualities and conditions, are already present, and the
laws which they follow are already active. As to the
origin of those qualities or their causes, and of these
laws, this view leaves us entirely in the dark.

■\."*sVi'i> :'

158 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

, CHAPTER n.

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE
^ DARWINIAN THEORIES.

§ 1. ElimincUion of the Idea of Design in the World. —

Monism.

From this mechanical view of the world, quite a
peculiar conclusion has been recently drawn — not by
Darwin, who does not give any opinion at all about the
mechanical view of the world, as such, or about its exten-
sion and influence, nor, indeed, by Darwinians, not even
by all followers of a mechanical view of the world, but on-
ly by a part of them ; namely, by those who have in a high
degfree attracted to themselves the attention of readino^
people. This conclusion is nothing less than the elimi-
nation of the idea of design in nature. This phenom-
enon demands our attention. Heretofore, the proof of
plan, design, and end in nature, at large and in detail,
was looked upon as the most beautiful blossom and fruit
of a thoughtful contemplation of nature ; it was the
great and beautiful common property, in the enjoyment
of which the direct, the scientific, and the religious con-
templation of nature peacefully participated. Now this
view is to be given up forever, in consequence of noth-
ing else than Darwin's selection theory. With an energy
— ^we may say with a passionateness and conficlence of
victory — such as we were accustomed to see only in the
most advanced advocates of materialism, Ludwig BUch-

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS. 159

iier, D. F. Strauss, Hackel,Oskar Schmidt, Helmholtz, the
editor df the " Ausland " and some of his associates, and
our often-mentioned '^Anonymus," — in a common attack,
assail every idea of a conformity tp an end in nature,*
every idea of a goal toward which the development at
large and individually strives; in a word, the whole cate-
gory o{ ideology,*

In order to be just in our judgment, we shall have
to let the advocates of this view speak for themselves ; —
the advocates of Dystdeology^ as Hackel, who is so
extremely productive in forming new exotic words,
calls it ; or of Aposkopiology^ as Ebrard, in his " Apolo-
getik" (''Apologetics"), correcting the etymology, some-

* For the use of readers who do not understand Greek, we may
state that the word teleology is derived from the Greek word tdos.
Gen. teleo8\ end, purpose, aim; and means the *' doctrine of design or
a conformity to the end in view," or, as K. E..von Baer prefers and
wishes to have introduced into scientific language, '* the doctrine
of the striving toward an end *' (ZlelstrebigkeiC). It seems to be quite
a superficial treatment of an idea on whose reception or rejection
no less a thing thaji an entire view of the world with all its most
important and deepest questions depends, when Dr. G. Seidlitz, in an
essay on the success of Darwinism (** Ausland," 1874, No. 37), states
incidentally that teleology is derived from the Greek rileo^^ perfect.
It is true that the Greek adjective for perfect is also derived from
that noun, riXoq^ which has the same root as the German word Ziel,
and there is even an Ionic form for that adjective which is riXso^,
but the Attic form is riXeio^ ; and since modern languages, when a
choice is allowed, do not derive their Greek foreign words from the
Ionic, but from the Attic dialect, that word — were it really derived
from that adjective and did it express " doctrine of perfection** —
would have to be teleiology, or, in Latinized form, teliology. As far
as we know, the word, since it was introduced into scientific lan-
guage, has never been derived from any other root than from riXo^^
Gen. r^Aeoc, end, and has never been used in any other sense than to
express the doctrine of a purpose and end in the world.

160 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

what pedantically calls it; or of Tdeophoby^ as it is
called by K. E. von Baer, in humorous irony.

The anonymous author of the book called "The
Unconscious from the Standpoint of Physiology and
Descent Theory," asserts that, while the descent theory
but puts the teleological principle in question by with-
drawing the ground for a positive proof — an assertion
which we certainly have to reject most decidedly (com-
pare Part n, Book II, Chap. I, § 2-§ 6)— the selection
theory directly rejects it. Natural selection, he says,
solves the seemingly unsolvable problem of explaining
the conformity to the end in view, as result, without
taking it as an aiding principle. And Helmholtz says :
"Darwin's theory shows how conformity to the end in the
formation of organisms can also originate without any
intermingling of an intelligence by the blind administra-
tion of a law of nature."

Hackel really revels in these ideas. He says (Nat
Hist, of Great., Vol. I, p. 19) : "These optimistic views
[of the much-talked of purposiveness of nature or of the
much-talked-of beneficence of the Creator] have, unfor-
tunately, as little real foundation as the favorite phrase,
' the moral order of the universe,' which is illustrated in
an ironical way by the history of all nations. * * *
If we contemplate the common life and the mutual rela-
tions between plants and animals (man included), we
shall find everywhere, and at all times, the very oppo-
site of that kindly and peaceful social life which the
goodness of the Creator ought to have prepared for his
creatures — -we shall rather find everywhere a pitiless,
most embittered 'Struggle of All against All. Nowhere
in nature, no matter where we turn our eyes, does that

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS.

161

idyllic peace, celebrated by the poets, exist ; we find
everywhere a struggle and a striving to annihilate neigh-
bors and competitors. Passion and selfishness — con-
scious or unconscious — is everywhere the motive force
of life. * * * Man in this respect certainly forms
no exception to the rest of the animal world." And on
page 33 : "In the usual dualistic or teleological (vital)
conception of the universe, organic nature is regarded
as the purposely executed production of a Creator work-
ing according to a definite plan. Its adherents see in
every individual species of animal and plant an ' em-
bodied creative thought,' the material expression of a
definite first cause (causa finalis), acting for a set pur-
pose. They must necessarily assume supernatural (not
mechanical) processes of the origin of organisms. * *
On the other hafid, the theory of development carried
out by Darwin, must, if carried out logically, lead to the
monistic or mechanical (causal) conception of the uni-
verse. In opposition to the dualistic or teleological
conception of nature, our theory considers organic as
well as inorganic bodies to be the necessary products of
natural forces. It does not see in every individual
species of animal and plant the embodied thought of a
personal Creator, but the expression for the time being
of a mechanical process of development of matter, the
expression of a necessarily active cause, that is, of a
mechanical cause (causa eflSciens). Where teleological
Dualism seeks the arbitrary thoughts of a capricious
Creator in miracles of creation, causal Monism finds in
the process of development the necessary efiects of
eternal immutable laws of nature." Hackel's " Anthro-

pogeny " also is replete with attacks upon a teleological
11 .

■ -^ • ►-

.^« ... ^ .

162

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

1 ■ •

H

view of nature, which leave nothing wanting in distinct-
ness and coarseness. On page 111, Vol. I, we read: ^'The
rudimentary organs clearly prove that the mechanical, or
monistic conception of the nature of organisms is alone
correct, and that the prevailing teleological, or dualistic
method of accounting for them is entirely false. The
very ancient fable' of the all-wise plan according to
which 'the Creator's hand has ordained all things with,
wisdom and understanding,' the empty phrase about the
purposive ^ plan of structure ' of organisms is in this
way completely disproved. Stronger arguments can
hardly be furnished against the customary teleology, or
Doctrine of Design, than the fact that all more highly
developed organisms possess such rudimentary organs."
(Compare also Vol. 11, p. 439: "The rudimentary organs
are among the most overwhelming proofs against the pre-
vailing, teleological ideas of creation.") According to
his opinion (Vol. I, p. 245), comparative anatomy may no
longer look for a " pre-arranged plan of construction by
the Creator." Besides, he calls it an anthropocentric
error to look upon man as a preconceived aim of
creation and a true final purpose of terrestrial life ; and
on page 17, of Vol. II, he supports this judgment by
comparing the relative shortness of the existence of man-
kind with the length of the preceding geological periods:
"Since the awakening of the human consciousness,
human vanity and human arrogance have delighted in
regarding Man as the real main-purpose and end of all
earthly life, and as the centre of teiTestrial Nature^ for
whose use and service all the activities of the rest of
creation were from the first defined or predestined by a
' wise providence.' How utterly baseless these presump-

■ .: -, :" T JmrlMWM

METAPHYSICAL OONCLUSIONa 163

tuous anthropocentric conceptions are, nothing could
evince more strikingly than a comparison of the dura-
tion of the Anthropozoic or Quaternary Epoch witii that
of the preceding Epochs." And on page 234, Vol. II:
*' Hence it is that, in accordance with the received teleo-
logical view, it has been customary to admire the so-
called * wisdom of the Creator' and the 'purposive
contrivances of His Creation' especially in this matter.
But on more mature consideration it will be observed
that the Creator, according to this conception, does after
all but play the part of an ingenious mechanic or of a
skillful watchmaker ; just, indeed, as all these cherished
teleological conceptions of the Creator and His Creation
are ba^ed on childish anthropomorphism. * * *
But it is exactly on this point that the history of evolu-
tion proves most clearly that this received conception is
radically false. The history of evolution convinces us
that the highly purposive and admirably constituted
sense organs, like all other organs, have developed with-
mit premeditated aim,^'*

Strauss, in his "The Old Faith and the New," gives
to this idea its philosophic and universalistic finish. In
§ 67~§ 70, he eliminates not only the idea of design in
individual cases, but also the idea of a design in the
world as a whole ; allows us to speak of design in the
world only in a subjective sense, so far as we understand
it to be what we think we perceive as the common final
aim of the concert of the powers, active in the world ;
and finds, when in such a sense it is spoken of as design
in the world, that the universe reaches its end in everj'^
instance. Only the parts develop themselves, driven by
the mechanical laws of causality, and after having lived

164

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

their period of life, sink back again into the universe, in
order to make place for new developments and to
prepare them in their turn.

For the view of the world which the antagonists of
teleology construct out of this ' ' mechanical" and " causal"
view, they, as we have repeatedly seen, have invented
the name " monism.'^'* In contrast to all dualism in rea-
soning about the relation of body and soul, God and
universe, time and eternity, and especially in contrast to
the dualism with which the theistic view of the world is
said to be loaded, monism claims that what was form-
erly divided into God and universe, force and matter,
matter and spirit, body and soul, is but one ; and it thus
exhibits a reconciliation, a higher unity, of materialism
and idealism, of pantheism and atheism, which unity in
the scientific and the practical ethic realm has no
antagonist to fight more energetically, and none which it
is better able to fight successfully, than d/icalism^ which
the monistic view of the -world, by a queer mistake as
to the theistic position of God in nature, especially con-
siders the whole theistic view of the world.

The scientific antagonists of teleology show such a
scientific intolerance against their own associates, that
one of the latest exhibitors of Darwinism, Oskar Schmidt,
in his ''Theory of Descent and Darwinism," bluntly
classes one of the greatest and most deserving investiga-
tors in the realm of comparative anatomy and palaeontol-
ogy, Richard Owen, of London, with the " 'italves ' who,
fearing the conclusions, with one word come to terms
with. the scientific conscience JV And why?— because
Owen still sees ends in nature, and by his inclination to
th€i acceptance of a descent, does not allow himself to

fi

"•<

_•. t

.... .-.irftSr.KU-<.^.

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS. 165

be prevented from giving adhesion to a teleological view
of the world. And this invention of monism is pro-
claimed to the world in such a full consciousness of its
great importance in the history of culture, that Hackel
closes his "Nat. Hist, of Great." with the following
words: "Future centuries will celebrate our age,
which was occupied with laying the foundations of the
Doctrine of Descent, as the new era in which began a
period of human development, rich in blessings, — a
period which was characterized by the victory of free in-
quiry over the despotism of authority, and by the power-
ful ennobling influence of the Monistic Philosophy."
At the end of the lecture, next to the last, in the same
Vol. II, page 332, he pays the following compliment to
the antagonists of monism: "The recognition of the
theory of development and the Monistic Philosophy
based upon it, forms the best criterion for the degree of
man's mental development." In his " Generic Morph-
ology," and in the first edition of his "Nat. Hist, of
Creat.," he, in a geological scala, which closes with the
human period, even divides the whole past, present, and
future history of mankind into two halves : first part,
dualistic period of culture ; second part, monistic period
of culture. Still, we will not omit to mention, with
credit, that this anticipatory historiography has discreetly
disappeared from the geological scala of the following
editions of his " Natural History of Creation."

As to the further scientific consequences to which this
anti-teleological monism leads, the advocates of it are
in tolerable accord ; although they are subject to the
most incomprehensible illusions regarding the practical
consequences of it, as we have seen in the above-quoted

166 THE THEORIES OF DAEWIN,

concluding words of Hackel's ''Natural History of Crea-
tion." As to the scientific consequences, they express
themselves plainly enough: the belief in a living Creator
and Lord of the world no longer find any place ;
everything, even all the rich treasures of human life
and history, become a result of blindly acting forces ;
the history of the world, ethics, and all spiritual sci-
ences, are in the progress of perception dissolved into
physiology, and physiology into chemistry, physics and
mechanism. In his "Natural History of Creation,'*
Vol. I, page 170, Hackel frankly calls the whole history
of the world a physico-chemical process.

Whoever refers to a view of another person, is in
duty bound to enter into that view, if possible object-
ively, even if he does not agree with it. The author of
this book tries to comply with this obligation in all his
representations, but must confess that in regard to the
just described view of the world, he does not succeed in
making it conceivable to himself in a manner to be just-
ified even from a relatively scientific standpoint ; a want
for which, it is true, we have beforehand the explana-
tory cause in the quotation from Hackel's ''Natural
History of Creation," Vol. H, p. 332, given above.

Perhaps it appears relatively conceivable, when it is
asserted that the observation of an order, a connection,
a development, a plan, in the world, leads to the percep-
tion of such a quality of the laws, primitive elements,
and forces of the world, that something like it had to
result from them ; but that it does not lead to the
acknowledgment of a personal author of the world. We
call such a view relatively conceivable, not because we
agree with it— for we find a logic which, in contemplat-

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS. 167

ing the universe, starts from an intelligent author of the
world, infinitely less surrounded by difficulties than one
contrary to it — but because the acknowledgment or
denial of a living God is in the Uist insUince not the result
of any scientific investigation or logical chain of reason-
ing, but the moral act of the morally and religiously
inclined individual, and because, if the individual has
once refused the strongest factor of faith in God, —
namely, his self-testimony in the conscience, — it is no
longer impossible for the individual to ignore his other
testimonies as such, or to declare them deficient. Now
we certainly can say that we see order and many results
in the world, which are conformable to the object in
view, and in consequence of this observation must admit
that no imaginable quality of primitive beginnings, ele-
ments, and forces of the world had caused this result,
but that this result must have already been in the plan.
But there certainly are imaginable, m abstractor infinitely
many possibilities of other elements and primitive begin-
nings of the world, — perhaps of some whose result
would have been but an eternal chaos, or of others
whose result would have been but an eternal rigidness,
or of still others whose result would also have been a
certain order and variety of phenomena and processes,
but less beautiful than that of the really existing world.
Thus, then, this world now exists as a special chance of
infinitely many chances ; and who knows whether, in
the course of thousands of millions of terrestrial years
in the struggle for existence, it did not obtain its exist-
ence among infinitely many possibilities of worlds
through a natural world - selection, and thus, by the
result of its existence, fully legitimate its conformity to

"'-'■?■.--_*■ ... ■ V -■'■'«.' .. , - ■-

170

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

leave the superfluous houses to wind and weather.
Nobody should call such actions conformable to an end
in view, and still less should we suppose behind this
action any higher wisdom, hidden reasons, or superior
sagacity. It is true, Wigand is right in replying to this,
that when we observe such things in nature, we have to
draw the conclusion that the very end supposed by the
observing man — in this case, the preservation of the
species — is not the only end, but that it has other ends
besides ; as, for instance, richness of life, inexhaustible
abundance, preservation of other organisms, etc. Be-
sides, this is but a single side of the comparison between
the action of man and that of nature ; and from this side
action of man, conformable to an end in view, appears
as a higher form of teleology, that of nature as a lower.
But there are other sides of comparison, which just as
clearly strike the eye ; nature builds from within in full
sovereignty of its process over mafter and form. Man
approaches his materials from without ; nature works
with never-erring certainty (Hackel's latest theory, that
nature ya^(/2^ its laws and processes, can surely not be
meant in earnest !) ; man often enough with error, false
calculation, awkwardness, failure and capricious arbitra-
riness. In these directions, teleology of nature is
infinitely superior to that of man.

We must be very careful in using anthropomorphism
as a term of reproach. It may be used as a reproach in
warning against careless reasoning and hasty compari-
son, but the idea of anthropomorphism is so extensible
that it can be extended over all human reasoning and
conception. Are not the reasons on account of which
the so-called anthropomorphism is to be rejected, often

, 1

-***■> ^1t ft ^ -"

ii-. <\ ^^ V i^l^' ■- ^- ^Y

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS. 169

conformity to the end in view in all those phenomena
which appear to us as properly planned ; for instance,
the organic appears to us higher than the inorganic, and
yet it is in its existence not only dependent on the
inorganic, but is often destroyed prematurely by it. Of
course, all these limits and barriers of our teleological
perception are abundantly used by all antagonists of a
teleological view of the world for the basis of their
position. Furthermore, the way and manner in which
man fixes his ends and reaches them, is essentially differ-
ent from the way and manner in which nature acts.
Man seeks to attain his ends with less expenditure of
power and means, the more he acts conformably to the
end in view ; while nature, it often enough appears to
us, when we have reason to imagine an effect of its
pi'ocesses also as the probable end of them, reaches this
end only by an immense squandering of means — for
instance, the preservation of organic species simply by
the production of thousands of germs and eggs, most of
which perish, and but very few of which are developed,
and still less are transmitted. This is a difference to
which Lange points, in order to reject a theory which
recognizes a striving toward an end (Zielstrebigkeit)
in nature, or at most to allow it a little place as the
lowest form of teleology, and to reject every attempt to
regard it as analogous to human striving toward an end,
as anthropomorphism. Nature, he says, acts, as if a
man, in ord^r to shoot a hare, should in a large field
discharge millions of guns in all possible directions ; as
if he, in order to get into a locked room, should buy
ten thousand different keys and try them all ; as if, in
. order to have a house, he should build up a town and

170 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

leave the superfluous houses to wind and weather.
Nobody should call such actions conformable to an end
in view, and still less should we suppose behind this
action any higher wisdom, hidden reasons, or superior
sagacity. It is true, Wigand is right in replying to this,
that when we observe such things in nature, we have to
draw the conclusion that the very end supposed by the
observing man — in this case, the preservation of the
species — is not the only end, but that it has other ends
besides ; as, for instance, richness of life, inexhaustible
abundance, preservation of other organisms, etc. Be-
sides, this is but a single side of the comparison between
the action of man and that of nature ; and from this side
action of man, conformable to an end in view, appears
as a higher form of teleology, that of nature as a lower.
But there are other sides of comparison, which just as
clearly strike the eye ; nature builds from within in full
sovereignty of its process over mafter and form. Man
approaches his materials from without ; nature works
with never-erring certainty (Hackel's latest theory, that
nzixyxQi falsifies its laws and processes, can surely not be
meant in earnest ! ) ; man often enough with error, false
calculation, awkwardness, failure and capricious arbitra-
riness. In these directions, teleology of nature is
infinitely superior to that of man.

We must be very careful in using anthropomorphism
as a term of reproach. It may be used as a reproach in
warning against careless reasoning and hasty compari-
son, but the idea of anthropomorphism is so extensible
that it can be extended over all human reasoning and
conception. Are not the reasons on account of which
the so-called anthropomorphism is to be rejected, often

.—-.*-■{•

_'> . 1 — -^ '

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS. 171

enough just as anthropomorphistic as the ideas which
are attacked ? For instance, when the idea of the person-
ality of God is attacked as an anthropomorphistic one,
are not the reasons with which it is assailed exactly as
anthropomorphistic as the conceptions which are to be
assailed? Do we not derive all our reasoning, logic,
our views, and in fact everything, at fii-st from our
human nature, and do we not in our most abstract reason-
ing always operate simply with the laws, as they inhere
in our human nature ? Is there even a single scientific
description conceivable without its being full of
anthropomorphisms ? Even the works of Darwin which,
according to the opinion of these opponents of anthropo-
morphism, destroy anthropomoi-phism and teleology, are
the most striking proof in favor of it. The discovery
of the general reign of the law of causality invalidates,
as they say, the reign of the category of teleology ; for
the one category contradicts the other. Suppose it were
so (we will, however, immediately see that the con-
trary is true) whence do we know that the category of
causality has the preference over that of finality or tele-
ology? The one, as well as the other, is anthropomor-
phistic, and is an undoubtedly necessary form of our
human reasoning. We believe in their objective validity,
because we cannot believe that the sum of existences
and the relations between the perceiving subject and the
perceived object aim at deceiving man ; we do not want
to be robbed of either the one or the other category ;
but if the question is as to the preference of the one cat-
egory over the other (which we contest), who knows
whether the category of finality has not moie reasons for
its superiority than causality ? Compare, in reference

'i.>

172 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

to this whole question, also the clear analyses in the
second volume of the. work of Wigand, and the instruct-
ive lecture of the Duke of Argyll upon anthropomorph-
ism in theology.

Nevertheless, all the points against teleology thus far
quoted can be understood by us as attempts at rejecting
the necessity of acknowledging a teleologically acting
principle of the world — or, to express ourselves more
clearly, of a living God — after having once rejected the
deepest motive for this acknowledgment, namely : the
self-testimony of God in the human conscience and mind.
But it is one thing to declare that we are not obliged to
accept a certain conclusion, and quite another to declare
that we are obliged to accept directly the opposite of
such a conclusion. It is one thing to declare that the
phenomena in the world do not yet oblige us to suppose
an author with a preconceived plan, and still another to
declare that because I have found or still hope to find
the causal connexion of phenomena conformable to the
end in view, no author with a preconceived plan exists.
This last assertion is one which the author of this work
confesses not to understand, and in whose conclusion he
cannot agree. Knowledge of the origin of something
certainly does not exclude the question xokerefore it
exists, and does not even take- its place, and when I have
answered both questions satisfactorily, then I may and
must justly ask whether both that for which something
exists and that by which something exists, is intended
or not, whether that which in the language of causality
I call cause and effect, also belongs to the category of
finality, according to which that very cause is at the
same time called means, and that very effect also design.

' ^ " I 1 - -" ■» I J II n >■ tAT

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS. 173

The one way of viewing postulates the other as its
necessary completion ; and the teleological point of view
is so little an impediment for the causal, that we are
much more fully convinced scientifically of the correct-
ness of the teleological way of viewing, when iSrst the
causal chain of causes and effects lies plain before our
perception without any wanting links.

We still have to mention two monstrosities which, as
it seems to us, necessarily result from the rejection of
teleology, although the opponents of teleology contest
the fact.

The one is the reduction to chance of all single for-
mations in the world. It is true, necessity reigns in
laws and their effect ; but if the degree and the sum of all
qualities in the world are not based the one upon the
other, if especially the single organizations originate by
the way of natural selection, every coincidence of each
single causal chain in the world with any other causal
chain is something accidental for the one as well as for
the other. Now, an explanation of that in the world
which is conformable to the end in view, by chance, is a
scientifically illogical idea. An accidental coincidence of
many circumstances can in a single case produce some-
thing which is conformable to an end in view; but the
probability that the formation conformable to the end in
view is again nullified by the next throw of the dice of
chance, is so great, and with every following throw grows
so decidedly in geometrical progression, that this proba-
bility after a few terms becomes a certainty, and we can
directly demonstrate mathematically that the world
without a teleological plan would be and remain a chaos.
As we have seen, even Lange finds himself obliged to

•VCi-

174 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

"■i-Sr

1

admit this plan, with the exception that he makes this
plan itself chance— special chance among infinitely many
possibilities.

The other consequence of that elimination of the |3

idea of design is that it forbids every difference between
higher and lower ^ and changes everj^ thing into an
indifferent and equivalent continual stream of coming and
going. For the whole idea of higher and lower belongs
to the category of teleology. If the new which origin-
ates is hut a product of that which was already in exist-
ence, and if the latter does not aim at the production of
the new, then the new is equivalent to the preceding; --<]i

and it is but an illusion of man, preconceiving an end,
when in the products of nature he discriminates between
higher and lower. A beginning of the acknowledg- >|

ment of this consequence is made, when Hackel, in his Aj

Anthropogeny, so violently attacks the idea that man is ; 0*

end and design of the terrestrial creation. But generally
the antagonists of teleology are guilty of the inconse-
quence which, although from the principles of their
system to be rejected, is indelibly impressed on our
thinking mind and especially on our moral conscious-
ness, that they still discriminate between higher and
lower, and particularly that they willingly assign to the
moral disposition and demand, and to the morally
planned individual, the priority among existences. This
fact is pronounced in a very striking way in the conces-
sions of Strauss, which we have quoted on page 126,
according to which nature, where it can no longer go
beyond itself, wishes to go into itself, and in man has
wished to go not only upwards but even beyond itself.

Therefore, not only theology, but also philosopliy," .

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS. 175

and even natural science, in their most prominent advo-
cates, have in a uniform chorus protested against this
destruction of the idea of design. That it was unani-
mously done on the part of theology^ is quite natural, and
needs no further proofs. When we, nevertheless, men-
tion expressly a single essay on these questions, it is
done on account of the fact that in its energetic defense
of the teleological point of view it is especially effective
by frankly and impartially admitting the strongest
positions of the opponent's standpoint — a thing which
rarely happens on the part of theologians. It is the
essay of Julius Kostlin "Ueber die Beweise fur das
Dasein Gottes" ("Proofs of the Existence of God"),
in the " Theologische Studien und Kritiken," 1875, IV
and 1876, I ; especially 1876, 1, p. 42 ff. On the part of
philosophy, we have to mention Ulrici, Fichte, Huber and
Frohschammer, who have rejected the attack against
teleology with inflexible criticism. Even Friedrich Vi-
scher in the sixth part of his " Kritische Gauge" ("Critical
Walks "), has forcibly maintained the right of teleology^
especially of its highest revelation, the moral order of
the world — in contrast to his friend D. F. Strauss, whose
"The Old Faith and the New" he criticises; but it is
true, in consequence of his pantheism, he reaches the
wholly imaginary conclusion of supposing a moral
order of the world without a regulator. And, to be
able to make the systematized order and beauty of
nature conceivable to himself without a Creator, to be
able to make conceivable to himself a design in
nature, an ideal, according to which nature works as
an unconscious artist, he gives to philosophy the cer-
tainly unsolvable problem of finding the idea of time-

170 THK THEORIES OF DARWIN. .

less time, to which the "afterward" can just as well
be a " beforehand" ; he prefers to do this rather than to
find the equally clear and deep solution of that teleological
difficulty in the simple idea of a Creator, who, as such,
also stands above time. One of the most remarkable
philosophic testimonies for the right of teleology is the
philosophic system of Eduard von Hai*tmann who,
although he calls his absolute the unconscious, ascribes
to it an unconscious intelligence and an unconscious will,
and makes the observation and acknowledgment of designs
and ends, which he sees in the whole realm of the world
of phenomena, an essential part of his entire system.
All attempts of this kind, as those of Vischer and Hart-
mann, fully and correctly to understand the language of
facts on the one side and to reject on the other the
necessary conclusion to which it leads — namely, the
acknowledgment of a creative intelligence above the
facts, and having an end in view— only increase in like
manner as the above-quoted cosmogonic idea of Lange
by the monstrosities of reasoning to which they lead,
the power of demonstration for that which they under-
take to contest. Natural scientists, finally, even Darwin-
ians, have not only in cobsual utterances often spoken a
weighty word in favor of teleology — as, for instance,
those who, like Oswald Heer, KoUiker, Baumgartner,
believe in a metamorphosis of germs, but also men who
are quite favorable to the idea of an origin of the species
through descent — as, for instance, Richard Owen, at the
end of his " Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates,"
separately published as "l)erivative Hypothesis of Life
and Species" ; Alexander Braun, in his lecture "Ueber
die Bedeutung der Entwicklung in der Naturgeschichte "

•r i - •• t- - '-

METAPHYSICAL GONGLU8ION8. 177

("On the Importance of Development in Nature")^ Ber-
lin, 1872 ; A. W. Volkmann " Ueber die Entwicklung der
Organismen" ( " On the Development of Organisms"),
Halle, 1875; Schaaffhausen, in his opening address to the
Wiesbaden Anthr. Versammlung, Braunschweig, 1874,
and others; but they have also given to teleology entire
treatises. Besides a more popular treatise of the astron-
omer Madler in " Westermann's Monatshefte," October,
1872, there belong to them the frequently mentioned
work of Wigand, and especially three essays of great
importance from the pen of a man who in questions of
development and its extent has among all contemporaries
the first right to speak, namely, Karl Ernst von Baer.
They are the essays on the conformity to the end in view
in general, on the conformity to the end in view in
organic bodies, and on Darwin's doctrine, published to-
gether with two other essays in the already mentioned
"Studien aus dem Gebiete der Naturwissenschaften,"
(Reden und Kleinere Aufsatze, 2ter Theil), Petersburg,
1876. Nay, even the two founders of Darwinism,
Darwin himself and A. R. Wallace, as we shall see in
defining their position tn reference to religion, express
themselves decidedly teleplogically ; this is especially true
of Wallace, and likewise of their active and able second,
Huxley. Only a single utterance of Darwin in a later
publication seems to take a sceptical position in regard
to teleology; compare below I^rt Second, Book I,
Chapt. lU, § 1. - .

Finally, we have to say a word concerning the name
which the anti-teleological view of the world gives to
itself: the name ''monism.'*'* The view of the world which
monism gives us, seems hardly comprehensible ; and
12

178 THE THEORIES OP DARWIN.

just as little does the name which it gives itself, seem
justifiable.

If this name is to indicate only a maxim of trwesti-
gation — the directive which scientific investigation has
to take, in order to reach more general points of view —
we could declare ourselves in full accord with it. All
investigation strives after a unity of principle ; this
impulse is a scientific leading motive of our nature.
Besides the absolute limits of our knowledge, there are
still enough relative and provisory limits to it; and
there also ai*e enough low points of view, mistakes, and
imperfections in science, to justify us when we expressly
form and establish monism as a maxun of scientific
investigation. All those theories and points of view
need such a spur and corrective, which are hastily
satisfied with a dualistic or a still farther expanded limit
of our knowledge. Among them we rank in theology
the antique heathenish dualism which separates God and
the world in such a way that God is but the architect
of the eternal matter, existing independently of God ;
and also the modern deistic dualism which considers
only the elements, principles, and beginning of the
world, as dependent on God, but not the entire course of
their developments as a whole and in detail. In phil-
osophy, taken in a narrower sense, we reckon with them
the one-sided atomism which can no longer find the
connecting link between the single elements of the
.world, or the one-sided assertion of realism or idealism,
since at this time all views of the world which win
acceptance from the present generation claim the praise
of showing the reconciliation and higher unity of realism
and idealism. In anthropology, there belongs to them

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS. 179

such a treatment of psychology and physiology, that the
one science does not trouble itself about the other, and
the investigation does not seek or keep in mind that
which is common to both, or that which is higher and
superior to them; and in all natural sciences, every mode
of investigation belongs to them, where the single
science retains no sympathy with all other sciences and
with the principles of all scientific investigation. In
regard to. these low points of view, mistakes, or imper-
fections, monism certainly is a correct and necessary
maxim of investigation ; but this maxim ought not to
lead us so far that we — as very often happens from the
unity or the possibility of grouping several forms of
existence under general conceptions — make an identify
that we efiace the difierences instead of explaining them,
and then think the effacement is an explanation; that
we set forth the assunied form of unity as if one we
had found, and in this manner falsify the method of
knowing. For as certainly and as much as man is sub-
ject to the dangers of error and falsification, just so
certainly and so little is nature subject to falsification.

But if the name " monism " is to designate a certain
view of the worlds it is for such a designation either too
comprehensive and quite applicable to aU views which
have a right to the name of view of the world ; or it
is misleading, and not applicable to any. For the name,
as if it were properly called henism, either expresses
only the unity of the principle of the world, and desig-
nates a quality which is the characteristic of every view
of the world, and which especially belongs to theism in
a clearer and more perfect way than to any other stand-
point ; or the name is lised to attest that the world alone

- /

V-.

*k .-.

180 .THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

exists, and that monism knows of but one existence, —
namely, that of the worlds while the contrary view of
the world — ^that of theism, which in a manner wholly
incompetent, and historically wholly unjustified, is called
dualism — supposes t^oo existences, God and the world.
But then this name does not correctly represent either
itself or theism. It does not correctly represent itself :
for the so-called monism does not, indeed, suppose that
that which appears in the world is the really existing,
or that the processes which come into appearance have
again their ^^naZ cause only in the appearance, but it
seeks the final causes of the phenomena in laws and
principles which can no longer be observed by our
senses, and of those it again seeks the common, highest,
and very last principle, the perception of which it either,
with Hackel, renounces or finds it, with other .theories,
now in atomism, and in attraction and repulsion, then in
the law of causality. Thus it has not only a single ex-
istence and mode of existence, but it does exactly the
same thing that theism does : it seeks the final princi-
ples of the world. And it does not correctly represent
•theism: for theism also does not know of two existences
to which the idea of existing is applicable in fully the
same way — namely, the world and God — but in seeking
a cause for the existence of the world, it finds it in God ;
the world, according to its view, only exists by the fact
that it exists in and through God. So theism in this
sense also contests with monism for the right of the
name.

Therefore, when teleology allows the opponent's
view of the world to appropriate the name monism
exclusively to itself, it can do this only in the same

■.:■♦;

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS. ' 181

sense as that in which, in order to ftv^oid disputes, we are
satisfied with many irrational names which have forced
themselves upon us; as, for instance, we can perhaps
call the clerical party in Bavaria the patriotic, because
it calls itself so, or as we accept the title of the ultra-
montane paper "Germania," at Berlin, without conced-
ing to the bearers of those names the care of patriotism
and of the interests of the German empire in a higher
degree than to parties and papers of a different stand-
point In fact, this linguistic arbitrariness does not
particularly tend to clearness of conception and to the
avoidance of obscure phrases.

jB^

k

PART II.

The Position of the DARWiircAiir

Theories in Reference to

Religion and Morality.

(188)

V-

ai^-^.^-v.-^,-^?i..,-.v^-.^.-v

'-^ rnVrr . ■^A m^.u.i " -i-.^-iSi

J, -•••.•

- /-{.-^-^

:mT

-.'*--'_V*jiyf 1

•-=*'•?;

■."^ ■^-.:''S

'*.

1

■...1

BOOK I.

HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL.

PLAN OF TREATMENT.

In discussing the conclusions which have been drawn
by Darwinism in reference to religion and morality, it
would seem appropriate to treat of the two realms
together. For the grouping which we have to give to
the different conclusions of Darwinian tendencies, in
their position in reference to religion, is nearly the same
which they also receive in their position in reference to
ethical questions.

But, nevertheless, we prefer to separate the two
questions ; not only because in fact one author has laid
more stress upon the religious realm, another more upon
the ethical, but because in reality, and also in the solu-
tion which we shall try to give to the problems presented
by them, both realms, although closely interwoven, and
limited by one another, still are theoretically to be treat-
ed apart.

In order not to exceed too much the limits of our
task, we must avoid going more into the details of the
relations between religion and morality in general, than
is absolutely necessary for the solution of our main
problem. This restriction we can easily put on our-
selves. For, first, every one who reflects at all on
human life and action, and on his own religious and

(185)

ms^.

.».- I-:.-

. i— •■»—•■ -•

186 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

moral conduct, generally has a very correct, instinctive,
and direct conception and perception as to the realm of
the religious as well as of the moral — as to their mutual
differences, as well as to their reciprocal relations — even
if he has not yet tried to bring this conception into ideas
and formulas ; and, secondly, it will not be di£Bcult to
present a short formula as to the ideal relation between
the religious and the moral, sufficient for the wants of
science as well as for the practical needs of a -more
detailed investigation. The religious is the relation of
our personality to God ; the morale the relation of it to
the world, comprehensively taken, ourselves iiv^luded.
We purposely call it a relation of our personality, and
not merely a relation of man, because in the religious
the ethical moment of self-determination which is
included in the idea of personality, is an essential factor;
and because we gladly make it conspicuous, partly in
opposition to the one-sidedness of Schleiermacher's feel-
ing of absolute dependence, partly to prevent a contrary
misunderstanding of our own view, as if we found
the seat of religion in the activity of knowledge. For
when, in our representation of the Darwinian con-
clusions and in our own investigation, we proceed as
objectively as possibb, and try to avoid all systematiza-
tion which is unfruitful for our task, in discussing the
Darwinian theories in reference to religion, we shall
have to take chiefly into consideration their relation to
religion in an objective sense, and chiefly also their rela-
tion to the contents of religion ; but this would make it
appear that we supposed religion in a subjective sense,
religiousness, to be in the first place an activity and a
possession of knowledge. Nothing lies farther from us

_ .1.-7 :

PLAN OF TREATMENT.

187

than this thought ; although religiousness certainly has
and asks for solid, objectively true, and really possessed
salvation, and however little we would overlook the word
of the Lord : '* And this is life eternal, that they might
knjow thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent" (John xvii, 3.)

Those who wish to inform themselves in regard to
the relation of religion and morality, will find the nec-
essary information in Martensen^s " Ethik " (" Ethics "),
in Otto Pfleiderer's monograph, which partly assumes a
contrary point of view, and in a thorough essay of
Julius Kostlin (Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1870, I),
which appeared before the "Ethics " of Martensen.

In undertaking now to represent the conclusions
which have been drawn from Darwinism, we treat of the
religious realm as the higher, a realm demanding a sound
morality prior to the moral realm ; and we begin with
those conclusions which take a hostile position in refer-
ence to religion, in order to proceed from them to the
moderate and friendly relations.

\. '^.

\ , .■•.-.

• * r'.X

188 THE THEORIES OF DAKWIN.

A. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND

RELIGION.

CHAPTER L

MORE OR LESS NEGATIVE POSITION IN REFERENCE

TO RELIGION.

§ 1. Extreme Negation. L. Buchner and Consistent

Materialism,

The common point of beginning and attack of all
those who take a negative position against religion,
is the rejection of teleology. The most advanced of all
materialists, Ludwig Buchner, in his self-criticism, whidi
he gives in his "Natur und Wissenschaft" ("Nature
and Science"), on page 465, openly declares, and quite
•correctly, that with the success or failure of the attacks
upon teleology materialism itself stands or falls.

Now while many, as we shall immediately see,
although opposed to a teleological view of the
world, still are inclined to give a more or less lasting
value to certain psychical processes which may be
called by the name religion, Biichner, on the contrary,
makes a direct attack upon everything which is thus
called. He does not render it difficult for us to review
his position. For, after having given it openly, but
still with certain relative modifications, in different
publications (especially in his book "Force and Matter,"
which-appeared in 1855 in the firat edition, and in 1872
in the twelfth) he gives it in cynical nakedness in the
lectures with which he travelled through America and

■ f. .*'

: 1-

•

POSITION IN KEFEHENGE TO BEUOION 189

Germany in 1872-1874, and the contents of which he
has made public in his pamphlet: "Der Gottesbegriff
und dessen Bedeutung in der Gegenwart " (" The Idea of
God, and its Importance at the Present Time"), Leipzig,
1874, Theo. Thomas. As is said in the preface, the
design of the lecture is "to give a renewed impulse
to the final and definitive elimination of an idea which,
according to the opinion of the author, obstructs our
whole spiritual, social, and political development,
as no other idea does." He means the idea of God ; not
merely the theistic idea of a personal God, but the idea
of God in general. For even the pantheistic idea of
God, which he had formerly treated with a certain polite
reserve, finds in his eyes even less favor than the
theistic. He says : "If the absurdity is already gi'eat
enough in theism, it is possibly still greater in panthe-
ism, which moreover has always played a great rdle in
philosophy;" and, "Christianity has but injured the
spiritual and material progress of mankind." In
agreement with Strauss, he sees the earliest origin
of the idea of God only in ignorance and fear. " Every
creating, preserving, or reigning principle in the world
is done away with, and there remains as highest spirit-
ual power present in the world only human reason.
Atheism or philosophic monism alone leads to freedom,
to reason, prognjss, acknowledgment of true humanity,
— in short to humanism."

This materialistic opposition to everything which is
called religion, is certainly independent of Darwinism,
and originated before its time ; but since Biichner him-
self sees in Darwinism but a grand confirmation of his
view of the world, and believes that he has found in it

• .*,«

190 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

that principle which, with urgent necessity, banishes tel-
eology from the contemplation of nature — teleology,
with the defeat or victory of which materialism stands
or falls, — we are entitled and obliged to rank even this
view of the world among the conclusions which in ref-
erence to religion have been drawn from the theories of
Darwin. And, indeed, it is a most extreme conclusion,
and simply puts itself in the category of negation to the
contents of religion, as well as to religion in a subjective
sense, to religious and pious conduct. It can be clearly
seen how finnly a view of the world which makes war
against religion and the idea of God its special Ufe-task,
is connected with all those destructive elements which
lie in human nature, and especially in the social circum-
stances of the present, and which have their only and
final ethical limit in the consciousness of God which, as
a power never wholly to be efiaced, lies in the depth of
the soul of even those who wander farthest from a moral
and spiritual life.

§ 2. HeplacemerU of Religion through a JReligious Wor-
ship of the Universe. Strauss^ Oskar Schmidt^ H'dckeL

Strauss, in that testament of his scientific life and
activity, "The Old Faith and the New," takes a some-
what diflferent position in reference to religion. Even
for him, the whole idea of God is abolished and replaced
by the idea of the cosmos ; but he makes this cosmos
the object of religious worship, and has exactly the
same feeling of absolute dependence in regard to it,
which, according to Schleiermacher, constitutes the
nature of religion. When Arthur Schopenhauer or

POSITION IN REFERENCE TO RELIGION. 191

Eduard von Hartmann bring forth their ' pessimistic
accusations against the universe, his religious sensation
reacts against it in the same manner as the organism
against the prick of a needle. This pessimism, he says,
acts upon reason as an absurdity, but upon sensation as
blasphemy. *' We demand the same piety for our
cosmos that the devout of old demanded for his God.
If wounded, our feeling for the cosmos simply reacts in
a religious manner." While, therefore, Strauss, to the
question, "Are we still Christians?" gives an emphatic
"No," heanswera the question, "Have we still a relig-
ion?" with "Yes or No, according to the spirit of the
inquiry."

Among men of science who wrote about Darwinism,
Oskar Schmidt, in his before-quoted publication, "The
Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism," seems to take
exactly the same position in reference to religion. At
least, he unreservedly professes monism, rejects all tele-
ological conceptions as imperfections, speaks of the
caprice of a personal God, and sees the conception that
the idea of God is immanent in human nature invali-
dated by the fact " that many millions in the most culti-
vated nations, and among them the most eminent and
lucid thinkers, have not the consciousness of a personal
God ; those millions of whom the heroic Strauss became
the spokesman."

Hackel, it is true, mentions Strauss only in the pre-
face of the fourth edition of his "Natural History of
Creation," but here he greets " The Old Faith and the
New " as the confession which he also makes, and thus
gives us an express right to place him in this class^
although he calls his worship of the universe religion ;

192

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

it is, however, a classification which his whole position
compelled us to give him. It is true, he speaks very
warmly of his own religion, which is founded on the
clear knowledge of nature and its inexhaustible abund-
ance of manifestations, and which, as " simple religion
of nature," will in the future act upon the course of de-
velopment of mankind, ennobling and perfecting it in a
far higher degree than the various ecclesiastic religions
of the different nations, "resting on a blind belief in the
vague secrets and mythical revelations of a saceixiotal
caste." (Nat. Hist, of Cr., Vol. II, p. 369.) He- also
repeatedly speaks of " manifestations of nature," and
even of a " divine Spirit which is everywhere active
in nature." In that respect he seems to take in
reference to religion, without regard to the historical
form in which it appeared as Christian religion, a still
more friendly and less problematic position than Strauss.
Moreover, he demands for every individual the full
right of fomiing his own religion ; among the more
highly developed species of men, he says, every inde-
pendent and highly developed individual, every original
person, has his own religion, his own God ; and it would
certainly, therefore, not be arrogant if he should alsa
claim the right of forming his own conception of God.,^
his own religion. But when we try to form a more
complete idea of his position in reference to religion, we
really do not find any essential difference between it and
that of Strauss. According to repeated utterances, he
can not imagine the personal Creator without caprice
and arbitrariness; again and again he advocates monism
with great warmth, and also identifies, in express words,
God and the universe, God and nature. '^Correspond*

^X-'

FOSITION IN REFERENCE TO RELIGION. 193

ing to our pi-ogressive perception of nature and our im-
movable conviction of the truth of the evolution theory,
our religion can be only a religion of nature.'^'* " In re-
jecting the dualistic conception of nature and the herewith
connected amphitheistic conception of God, * * * we
certainly lose the hypothesis of a personal Creator ; but
we gain in its place the undoubtedly more worthy and
more perfect conception of a divine Spirit which pene-
trates and fills the universe." Furthermore, the faith in
a personal Creator is called a low dualistic conception of
God, which corresponds to a low animal stiige of
development of the human organism. The more highly
developed man of the present, he says, is capable of
and intended for an infinitely nobler and sublimer mon-
istic idea of God,' to which belongs the future, and
through which we attain a more sublime conception of
the unity of God and nature. According to his Anthro-
pogeny, the belief that the hand of a Creator has
arranged all things with wisdom and intelligence is
an ancient story and an empty phrase.

§ 3. Pious Renunciation of the Knowability of Qod,
WilhelmJSleek^ Albert Lange^ Herbert Spencer,

A more friendly position in reference to religion is
taken by those who hold, not directly negative, but only
decidedly sceptical views of the existence of God ; who
reduce the relative unsearchableness of God, which every
religious standpoint admits, to an absolute unknowabil-
ity ; and who find the nature of religion either in a pious
acknowledgment of this unknowability, or in a poetical
substitute for the knowledge of God, i.e.^ comprehend-
ing the unknowable in a figure. The most prominent
13

,?^j

194 THE THEORIES OF DAKWIN.

advocates of this position are, on the side of exact
investigation, Wilhekn Bleek ; and on that of {diiloso-
]4iy, Albert Lange in Grermany and Herbert Spencer in
England. Since all three use the Darwinian theories for
their systems, they also belong to the ranks of our his-
torico-critical essay.

Wilhelm Bleek, in the preface to his ^^ Ur^rung der
Sprache " (" Origin of Language ^j rejects all claims of a
positively revealed religion to an objective truth — not in
such a way as to substitute the universe in place of Grod,
but so that he remains sceptical in reference to every
attempt at forming an idea of Grod, demands a pious and
modest confession of this non-understanding by man,
and sees in this reverential modesty the certainly not
very significant nature of his religion. In the preface
he says that all worship originates in reverence for
ancestors, and that even the doctrine of the atonement
of modem theology has its origin there. The next step
after reverence for ancestors was the worship of nature.
But the grand turning-point at which the mythological
mode of view gives way — in which mode of view he
' also reckons Christianity — ^is the giving up of the idea of
the necessity of an atonement ; for this whole idea is but
anthropomorphism. It is when man has recognized the
impossibility of a being, similar to man, as the final
cause of all existences, and in reverential modesty has
admitted his ignorance in reference to the nature of the
origin of things, that he learns to understand how nar-
row a view he has of Grod when he thinks that he under-
stands him.

On the side of philosophy, Albert Lange and Herbert
Spencer reach similar results. Albert Lange, in his

POSITION IN REFERENCE TO RELIGION. 195

"History of Materialism," starting especially from
premises of Kant, reaches the conclusion that thfe " thing
per 86^^'* the " intelligible world," is absolutely hidden to
us. What we perceive is but the world of appearances ;
and the fact that we perceive it, and perceive it as we
do, is originally founded in the human organization.
By virtue of this organization we are bound,
in all our knowledge of the world of appearances,
to the law of causality. Science does not get beyond
this causal chain of finite and relative causes and
effects; to the "thing jp^^r^d " there is nowhere to be found
a bridge, not even as Kant supposes, in the categoric
imperative, nor in ideas. Inasmuch as science does not
get beyond this chain, it is materialistic ; inasmuch as it
must nevertheless perceive the existence, or at least the
possibility of the existence, of a '' thing jp^ s^," even if
it does not see any way to its perception, it is idealistic.
But man also has ideal impulses, and he has to follow
them just as much as the impulse of perception. By
virtue of these ideal impulses, he makes in imagination
a picture of the " thing per se " in the activity of philos-
ophic speculation, art, and religion. Philosophic specu-
lation is but imaginative conceptions. It has always a
value in the history of culture, as a summing-up of the
elements of culture and of the spiritual impulses and
treasures of a certain time; but it en's as soon as it claims
to be more than imaginative conceptions — namely, an
adequate representation of the final cause of all things —
for it lacks the necessary basis of experience. Art does
not claim this, and therefore is not exposed to that dan-
ger of deception. Religion satisfies a need of the heart,
to have a home of the spirit in the " thing per se " ; but

196 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN

since the "thing jpe?r «<?" is not accessible for us, religion
creates in mind that home, in order to rise above the
common reality to it. Lange finds the highest realization
of a perfect satisfaction of that impulse in the philosophic
poems of Schiller. He sees the quintessence of religion
expressly *' in the elevation of minds above the real, and
and in the creation of a home of the spirit." Religion
remains untouched in its full vital power, as long as it
retains that as its quintessence ; but it is exposed to all
the dangers of a destructive criticism as soon as it seeks
its quintessence in something else — for instance, in cer-
tain doctrines of God, the human soul, creation of the
world, etc.

Herbert Spencer is in full accord with Lange in
regard to the theory of an absolute indiscernibleness of
the final cause of all things ; but he reaches this result in
a somewhat different way, and from his premises infers
a different modification of the nature of religion. In his
"First Principles" he appears to be a true scholar of the
English and Scotch schools of philosophy, from which he
takes his start in conscious and express opposition to the
German modes of speculation, and begins with an empiric
comparison of all actual contrasts existing in the world
and in human life. He follows the axiom that a parti-
cle of truth lies at the basis of every error, and that each
contrast becomes a contrast only by the fact that the two
poles of the contrast have something in common. Now,
in comparing with one another all contrasts between
religion and science, and all forms of religiousness and
irreligiousness, from fetishism up to monotheism, pan-
theism, and atheism, all imaginable cosmogonies, he
finds, as the last truth common to all, and therefore

POSITION IN REFERENCE TO RELIGION. 197

alone absolutely certain, the absolute indiscemihleness of
the final coMse of all things. On page 44 he says, that
religions diametrically opposed in their overt dogmas,
are yet perfectly at one in the tacit conviction that there
is a problem to be solved, that the existence of the world
with all it contains is a mystery ever pressing for inter-
pretation; and on page 45, that the omnipresence of some-
thing which passes comprehension, is that which remains
unquestionable. And on page 46 he concludes : *' If
Religion and Science are to be reconciled, the basis of
reconciliation must be this deepest, widest, and most
certain of all faets — that the Power which the Universe
manifests to us is utterly inscrutable." The acknowl-
edgment of this fact is religiousness ; the contrary of it
is irreligiousness and anthropomorphistic arrogance, even
if it appears in the name of religiousness. " Volumes
might be written upon the impiety of the pious" (p. 110).

A comparison of the two philosophers is interesting.

In one direction, Lange does more justice to the
religious need than Spencer does. While he sees in
religion the metaphorical realization of the needs of the
heart, of a "creation of a home of the spirit," he gives
to the heart full play to satisfy its need, and to create
and arrange for itself a spiritual home entirely according
to its need. He especially acknowledges repeatedly the
need of the heart for atonenie7it^ and vigorously defends
this need and its satisfaction against Liberal Theologians
(Reformtheologen), like Heinrich Lang; he also stands,
as we see, in satisfactory contrast to Wilhelm Bleek.
Without reserve, he admits into the hymn-book of his
religion of the future hymns like that of Gerhard :
'' O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden " (" O Sacred Head,

JSi'. , ■■•■ : -^■

198 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

now wounded "). To be sure, all the concessions he makes
to religion sink again to the value of a beautiful illusion,
from the fact that for him they are but metaphorical
approaches to the cause of all things, which after all
still remains inaccessible. But nevertheless, in conse-
quence of that idea of i-eligion, religious life, and espe-
cially also religious service, has infinitely more room fdr
rich development in Lange than in Spencer. For,
according to the view of the latter, religiousness consists
in nothing else but the perception and acknowledgment
of this indiscernibleness of the final cause. All other
things which may be still connected ^vith religious life
and reasoning, are but a misty veil. The acknowledg-
ment of the indiscernibleness of the final cause of all
things alone is the quintessence of religion. But such
a religiousness, which expressly forbids imagining any
quality or any state of the highest being, certainly would
be, as Prof. Huxley correctly says in his " Lay Sermons,'^
for the most part of the silent sort.

While thus Lange's conception of religion is superior
to that of Spencer in admitting a richer development of
religious life, a more various satisfaction of the religious
need, in another direction Spencer is superior. He
comes considerably nearer to a correct and full concep-
tion of God than Lange. His idea of the final cause
of all things does not lie entirely in the conception that
it is the absolute indiscernible ; but Spencer is fully in
earnest with the idea that this indiscernible is the real
cause of the world and of all single existences in it. He
accordingly forbids giving certain attributes to the abso-
lute — not because it would be doubtful whether it has
attributes or not, but^ because it stands above all these

POSITION IN REFERENCE TO RELIGION. 199

imaginable attributes as their i^cal cause. Therefore he
forbids, for instance, attributing personality, intelligence,
will, to the highest being — not because it could also be
impersonal, and. in want of intelligence and will, but
because it stands above all these attributes as their high-
est real cause, and because we can think of all these
attributes only in human analogy, and therefore, when
attributed to the highest being, can think of them only
in rejectable anthropomorphism. He says, on page 109:
" Those who espouse this position [personality of Grod],
make the erroneous assumption that the choice is between
personality and something lower than personality ;
whereas the choice is rather between pei'sonality and
something higher. Is it not just possible that there is a
mode of being as much transcending Intelligence and
Will, as these transcend mechanical motion ? It is true
that we are totally unable to conceive any such higher
mode of being. But this is not a reason for questioning
its existence ; it is rather the reverse The Ulti-
mate Cause cannot in any respect be conceived by us
because it is in every respect greater than can be con-
ceived."

Thus we iSnd in Lange a fuller and richer conception
of the subject of religion ; but this conception is in want
of one thing — without which it is in want of everything
— namely, of nothing less than of the objective reality.
Spencer's religiousness has a much more meagre and
less varied character : the acknowledgment and venera-
tion of the indiscernible ; but he nevertheless gives us
with' this content and object a real object, even an object
of veneration, in which the abundance of all reality is
hidden, with the only conception that the indiscernible

200 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

does not let us look into its cornucopia, but only lets us
judge of the abundance of its contents by the richness
of that which it pours over us in the world of the rela-
tively perceptible.

It will not be difficult to show the points at which
each of these writers would have been able, had he so
wished, to lead his conception of religion, the one to a
real, the other to aiiiU content.

Lange finds the last principle of perception which is
accessible to us, in our orgcmization. Now from our
organization originate not only all modes of the percep-
tion of the empirical world, but just as well all our ideal
impulses, especially the ethical. Which one of all those
dispositions, impulses, and activities has the precedence,
mainly depends upon the value which man places upon
them. Now, when pian attributes to the ideal -and
ethical a higher valiig thian to the empirical, when in
reflecting about himself he finds that even in the normal
individual, the empirical, sensual, and material is
subordinate and subject to the ideal and especially
to the ethical, then from the standpoint of Lange
he is right, and obliged to estimate the truth of that
ideal and ethical as higher than the truth of the empir-
ical world, and to look at the whole empirical world
only as being in the service of that ideal world. When,
at the same time, we observe an inner harmony in our
organization, this observation gives us the right and the
duty of controlling the truth of our empirical perception
by the truth of the results of our ideal and our ethical
activity, and the latter again by the former. For if we
do not wish to suppose that the human organization aims
at a grand deception of mankind, we have, in spite 'of

POSITION IN REFERENCE TO RELIQION. 201

the superiority of the ideal and ethical activities, to
establish the axiom that the empirical and the ideal and
ethical cannot remain in lasting contradiction. Besides,
if we should add to this that a religion like Christianity
oflfers to man that which it gives to him on the ground
of historical facts, then the reports of these facts will
certainly be subject to historical criticism just as surely
as all historical reports ; but if they are confirmed, the
ideal and ethical convincing power which lies in this re-
ligion, unites for us with the whole weight of the con-
vincing power of the historical and empirical facts,
although the reproduction and systematization of its
contents is still deficient and capable of further devel-
opment.

In Spencer's system, there are two points by which
his own course of reasoning is able to bridge over the
poverty of his conception of religion. The first point,
given on pages 107-108 of his "First Principles," and
also elsewhere in his works, is the acknowledgment that
the final cause of all things is higher than all that we
know, and is of such a nature that it really can be the
real cause of everything, even the real cause of the spirit-
ual and ethical. Thus he forbids us to think of qualities
of the highest being, but he himself thinks of them ; for
this conception of the highest being as an impet'sonal is
certainly something else and something much more val-
uable than the mere negation of personality. The other
point which might be able to lead him out of the vacu-
um of his idea of God, lies in the method of his own
investigation. When he seeks the truth by collecting
what is common in all the contrasts, he also must seek
and find something common between the highest cause

4!hSSfj^\- ^.-

202 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

of nil things on one side and of the world as a whole
and in detail on the other ; and this something will
consist of the necessity of the highest cause of all
things being so qualified that it is ahle to bring
into existence the world as a whole and in detail. If
such ideas are also rejected as anthropomorphisms, then
all reasoning and investigating is anthropomoiphiijtic ;
and in that respect we refer to what we had to say above,
when treating of teleology (p. 170 ff.). The same Duke
of Argyll whom we there had occasion to quote, in an
article in the '^Contemporary Review" (May, 1871),
upon "Variety as an Aim in Nature," has admirably
shown that it is the mind of man from which we may
draw conclusions as to the nature of the Creator, and
that the picture which we thus get of him, can at the
same time be seen true and yet dim, at the same time
real and yet from a distance ; for the human mind does
not feel anything so ihuch as its own limitations, and
therefore can easily imagine each of his powers and
talents as being present in the highest being in infinite
' perfection. If Spencer had made this comparison, and
drawn the conclusions which follow from it for the
nature of the final cause of all things, the indiscernible-
ness of God would for him be reduced to an unsearcha-
bleness, the unknowable be changed into an unsearcha-
ble, and we could willingly acknowledge the humble
modesty in regard to the infinity of the deity, which his
philosophy requires, as a factor of all true religiousness.
But we have to present to him as an expression, not only
of true religiousness, but also of true science, that pas-
sage of the Psahns : " He that planted the ear, shall he

POSITION IN REFERENCE TO RELIGION. 203

not hear ? He that formed'the eye, shall he not see ? '*
(Psalm xciv, 9.)

§ 4. Spinoza and Hegel in the Garb of Darwin: Carneri.

Eduard von Hartmann,

To the Austrian philosopher Carneri in his " Sittlich*
keit und Darwinismus" ("Morality and Darwinism"),
three books of Ethics, Vienna, Braumiiller, 1871, we
shall have to give a place of his own.

Inasmuch as religion and the beautiful are to him but
a preliminary stage of truth which has to dissolve itself
into philosophy — a philosophy which, inclined to mon-
ism, prefers to call itself pantheism — he takes a position
in reference to religion similar to that toward material-
ism, namely : a negative position. But inasmuch as he
still grants to religion in a subjective sense, to "religion
in the form of piety," a lasting position and truth (reli-
gion, he says, has truth, but the positive God of religion
has no reality, page 114), and inasmuch as he ascribes to
it not only a transitory pedagogical value for the masses,
which are not yet elevated to the height of philosophic
reasoning, but a value also for the philosopher— namely,
the value of religiousness and of piety — ^he rather be-
longs to the second and third of the before-mentioned
groups.

Carneri, in his " Three Books of Ethics," gives us a
whole philosophic encyclopedia. In thoughts sometimes
rich, but without regularly arranged and quiet reason-
ing, and in full command and employment of modem
terms which he uses sometimes like a genius, but often
superficially and unjustly, he develops a view of the
world which, although it appears in an independent way

^"^"^^v-

204 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

in all its fundamentals, as regards its contents takes its
origin from Spinoza, and as regards form and dialectics
from Hegel, but sometimes, it is true, sinks into weak-
nesses of which these philosophers would hardly have
been guilty. So, for instance, when he simply identifies
religious faith with conjecture, he takes a superficial view
which he has in common with Hackel who, among other
things, repeatedly says that faith begins where knowl-
edge ceases. Dialectical motion is everything to him.
In pursuing this dialectical motion, he gives us a multi-
tude of outlooks into all imaginable realms of knowledge
and life, but he always follows at the same time the
formula of dialectical motion, and, where the diflSculties
of the real world ^re most invincibly opposed to this
dialectics, knows, 'like his master, with almost chivalric
ease, to mingle and confound abstract formalistic reason-
ing and thoughts naturally following from the given
thought. Want of clearness in general makes the read-
ing of this otherwise not unimportant book very difficult.
On a Darwinian foundation in his conception of nature
and its development, he puts a Hegelian structure into
his conception of human spiritual life, but finally lets
mankind, although it is the highest form of appearance
in this development, sink back into death and destruc-
tion.

The God of this view of the world is the causal law;
the conception of this causal law is the worship of the
philosopher — a God, of course, so incapable of filling
and quieting a mind longing for God — a worship so
leathern that Cameri himself cannot get rid of the
opinion that, with such religious ideas of reform, he will
finally lose the last reader of his book. The aim of the

POSITION IN REFERENCE TO RELIGION. 206

development, also, does not promise to the mind any
substitute for the rigidness of God, for the aim of the
development is death — ^the death of the individual as
well as of the universe. " He who has learned to get
comfort in the deepest affliction from the absolute im-
partiality of the causal law, is on so good terms with
death, whose inflexibility he comprehends, that without
reluctance he gives to it the universe into the bargain."
(p. 353.)

. We give these glimpses into the dreary waste of the
very latest advocate of pessimism which, as it seems,
has fully and formally become the fashion, in order to
show what monstrosities are demanded from thought,
what revolting hardness trom feeling, what nonentities
of ethical striving, are offered as valuable wares, if man
has once begun to break the bond between himself and
his living Creator and Master. For this reason, not
only the anti-teleological monists meet the fate of Nihil-
ism, whether they appear in the plebeian roughness of
Biichner or in the aristoQi'atic gentility of Strauss, but
also such a brilliant advocate of teleology as Eduard von
Hartniann does not know of any other final end to offer
to the world and mankind than nothingness, because he
did not wish to be driven from his perception of ends in
the world to the only conclusion to which it leads —
namely: to the perception of an absolute intelligent and
ethical personality that directs these ends. He pre-
fers, rather, to suppose an unconsciously seeing substance
of the world, which, after having once in the dark im-
pulse of its unconscious will, made the mistake of crea-
ting a world, leads the same by the instinct of uncon-
scious teleology in sad, melancholy, and yet relatively

i.

206 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

best development, until it is ripe to sink back into noth-
ingness, and thereby to bring the absolute to rest.

Although we pity the individuals who came under
the ban of such a pessimism, we nevertheless can be
glad of the fact that the consequences of such a separa-
tion from God are at least exposed so clearly, and
return from wandering through such barren steppes
with renewed thankfulness to our Christian view of the
world, with its divine plan and aim.
• We have, next, however to review the representatives
of theism and of the Christian view of the world—
which review will show us that the song of triumph
which monism began to raise before its expected victory,
came very near disturbing the composure of persons
here and there.

§ 6, Re-echo of Negation on the Side of the Christian

View of the World,

In this condition of affairs, it certainly could not
happen otherwise than that, even on the part of the the-
istic and positive Christian view of the world, some
advocates were drawn into the contest who thought
themselves obliged to see two irreconcilable antagonists
in Darwinism and Christianity.

Science and religion had both been so much accus-
tomed to see the origin of species, and especially the
appearance of man on the stage of earth, hidden in
impenetrable and unapproachable secrecy, that every
attempt at clearing up this darkness very naturally
appeared to both as an attack upon the creative activity
of God. The mode of reasoning to which mankind, in
its scientific as well as in its religious meditations, had

POSITION IN REFERENCE TO REUGION.

207

accustomed itself for hundreds of .years, was used to
exclude from the idea of creation the conception of inter-
vening agencies; and this was true not only in re^rd to
the idea of the first creation of the universe, where the
idea of intervening agencies naturally is left out, but
also in regard to the idea of the creation of single beings.
Moreover, mankind was so accustomed to see a con-
trast between origination and creation, that in the &ame
degree in which man tried or was able to perceive the
modalities of the origin of species, the divine causality,
or at least the idea of creation, seemed to disappear; and
for the word of the Bible, that God created creatures
each after its Tcind^ a place could no longer be found.

To this was added the fact that not only all material-
ism took possession of Darwinism as the irresistible
battering-ram which, as they said, forever demolishes
the whole fortress of theism and buries under its ruins
all those who take refuge in this decaying castle, but
that even naturalists let themselves be carried away
without opposition by this-anti-theistic current, and even
submitted to be heralds and prophets of this new anti-
theistic wisdom of monism. Let the reader think of
Hackel's "Natural History of Creation " and "Anthro-
pogeny," where he will find the most interesting reports
from all realms of exact natural science, together with a
wholly unsolved entanglement of descent, selection, and
mechanical view of the world, and this mode of contem-
plation of the world, with eloquent and enthusiastic
proclamation of monism and with unconcealed derision
of the capricious arbitrariness of a personal Creator, all
thrown together as one great entire system, formed at
one stroke.

-': .>.- -?. r". * '-

208 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

Is it, then, to be wondered at, that not only the un-
critical among believers, but also those who thoughtfully
examined the movements of the mind, believed in the
loudly-proclaimed connection of Darwinism with the
whole anti-Christian view of the world, and therefore
protested immediately against everything which is called
Darwinism ? Can we reproach theologians for not im-
mediately becoming scientists themselves, in order to
form an independent judgment in the question, when
even the most eminent scientists declared that amalga-
mation of the most heterogenetic as an inevitable conse-
quence of Darwinism, and as much as possible diminished
or concealed their want of harmony with a few other
investigators who, although small in number, yet by
their weight counterbalanced dozens of names of the
second and third rank ?

Thus we could read, in the journals of specialists,
in pamphlets, in relfgious and political journals, even in
local newspapers, a great many articles which were
guilty of exactly the same confounding of the scientific
and the religious, and again of the scientific and the
philosophic, as those who had caused this confounding,
and who, under the supposition of this solidarity of
wholly distinct things, attacked and contested in the
interest of religion, not only the anti-religious conclu-
sions of Darwinian philosophers, but also Darwinism as
a merely scientific theory, and rendered the contrast as
strong as possible by adhering to that above censured,
unmotiv^d, indefensible, and one-sided conception of
creation.

And although on the part of positive Christian theol-
ogy there was a gradually increasing number of voices

POSITION IN REFERENCE TO RELIGION. 209

of those who in the idea of an origin of species through
descent do not yet see an injury to the theistic and Chris-
tian conception of God and creation, still as a rule this
concession was made only to the idea of descent, and
not to that of selection and to that which is properly
called Darwinism. As a rule, in most of the theologicd
works which treat in general of the Darwinian ques-
tions, Darwinism and opposition to the Christian concep-
tion of God and creation were and are still taken as
identical. For instance, Ebrard, in the first part of his
^' Apologetik " ("Apologetics"), Giitersloh, Bertelsmann,
1874, enumerates among the systems which are opposed
to Christianity, in the same line with the doubtless antir
theistic and anti-Christian aposkopiology or negation
of the idea of design, also the mechanistic system, or
the negation of the organic vital . force, and the Dar-
winian theory of descent. Besides, in reading his
''Apologetics," we had earnestly wished, in the interest
of science as well as of religion, that a theologian who
writes a work which claims to be scientific and to advor
cate the Christian standpoint, had abstained from that
coarse and disgusting contempt and derision of adversa-
ries which we meet so often in his book, and which only
causes friend and foe to take a position contrary to that
which the author intended. Triimpelmann who, in an
essay upon Darwinism, monistic philosophy, and Chris*
tianity (Jahrbiicher fiir protestantische Theologie, 1876, 1)
gives a similar conception of the relation between
Darwinism and religion, but defends his whole position
with much more scientific acuteness and depth, has also
not taken the tone which worthily treats an opposite

opinion and its advocates.
14

■•" , » ^

Mt^m --^j^^-^^^M^^^^^j

210 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

CHAPTER n.

REFORM OF RELIGION, OR AT LEAST OF THE SCIENCE
OF RELIGION, THROUGH DARWINISM.

§1. Heinrich Lang^ FHedrich Vischer^ Gicstav Jdge(r.

In passing on to those who in Darwinism do not see
a negation but a reformation of religion, or at least of
theology, we first meet Heinrich Lang, the late spiritual
leader of the ''Reformtheologie" in Switzerland. He
treats of " Die Religion im Zeitalter Darwins" ('' Relig-
ion in the Age of Darwin ") in Holtzendorflf's and Onck-
en's "Deutsche Zeit-und Streitfragen," Jahrg. H, Heft
31, Berlin, Luderitz, 1873.

With a very correct estimate of the lasting value of
religion as well as of natural science, and with a warm
apology for the religious realm, he regulates the bound-
aries of each by asking religion not to hinder modem
knowledge of the World and nature, and by asking
knowledge of nature to leave the realm of religion
untouched in its self-certainty.

But when he, evidently still dependent on the old
rationalistic supematuralistic conception of miracle and
providence, claims to find that as the result of modem
knowledge of the world and nature a special providence
is no longer conceivable, and no other hearing of prayer
is possible than a subjective psychological one; that the
processes in the world, in their entire final causal con-
nection of causes and effects, nowhere leave a place for

REFORM OF RELIGION THROUGH DARWINISM. 211

the freely acting hand of a divine Lord of the world,
and that even a moral order of the world can only prove
itself so far as guilt and punishment stand in a natural
causal connection with one another: then his religious-
ness makes concessions to the modem view of the world
which it is not at all obliged to make or justified in
making, and forces upon religion a reform against the
necessity and usefulness of which not only religious feel-
ing and need, but also deeper and more consequent
reflection on God and the world, just as strongly strives.
What remains to him as an independent realm for
religion is nevertheless worthy of recognition. As
faith of the human mind in a transcendental unity which
manifests itself in the manifold and sensible, and carnes
through a moral order of the world — although one which,
by the before-mentioned limitation of the natural con-
nection of guilt and punishment, is very much reduced —
religion gives to the mind warmth and worship ; as con-
fidence of the heart in an infinite possession in the
anguish of the finite, it creates confidence in God, grat-
itude, devotion, energy, courage of life ; as reverence
for a holiness which stands unimpeachable above the
fluctuating inclinations of our will, awakens the con-
sciousness of guilt, and abolishes the guilt, it remains
the basis of all moral action. . Lang also sharply and
correctly points out the insufficiency of Strauss's "The
Old Faith and the New," as well as the conflict between
his metaphysical naturalism which only leads to the
struggle for existence, and his demand of self-su*bmission
to the universe, and of the moral and spiritual self-
determination of man as of a being which goes beyond
nature. Nevertheless we can not follow Lang in his

»

212

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

ways of reform. First — his conception of Grod is amaz-
ingly meagre, and of more than a Spencerian unap-
proachableiiess God is to him, according to his "Dog-
matics," nothing but the eternal, in itself perfect caiise
of all being, exempted from all changes of the world's
process. When he gives the name of father to this pri-
meval cause, as he does in his sermons and elsewhere,
without being able to admit relation of mutual love of
person to person, he only makes it glaringly evident how
little his abstract metaphysics can satisfy religious need.
Second — that which is claimed to be gained by this
modern view of the world (namely, extension of the
supremacy of religion to everything, even to the affairs ,
of daily life), is not at all new, but is the effect of long-
existing sound religiousness, and is the essence of all
sound i-eligious doctrine ; and we therefore can not see
how a view of the world, which, for instance, denies
divine providence, and limits the hearing of prayer to
its psychological effects, shall have greater force to leaven
the whole daily life religiously, than our Christian
faith in the Father without whose will no sparrow falls
to the ground, and who says to his children : '' Call upon
me in the day of trouble : I will deliver thee, and thou
shalt glorify me." Third — exactly that which Lang
declares a purification of religion (namely, the before-
mentioned elimination of divine providence and of all that
which is connected therewith), appears to lis not at all
as a reform, but as an immense impoverishment and
desolation of religion, which is so far from being re-
quired by natural science, that it turns out to be but a
concession to the most superficial metaphysicians who,
of course, have become very popular.

'4

J).

'.L.

■• v4

.•^^

•-«■

.4 • "N. 'J' ■■

• ''^^ '-•*" XV "--

\*

REFORM OF RELIGION THROUGH DARWINISM. 213

Friedrich Vischer is also to be ranked in this group.
In the sixth part of his ''Kritische Gange" ("Critical
Walks"), he speaks of Strauss' ''The Old Faith and the
New," and takes his determined position in reference to
the religious question, quite essentially differing from
Strauss. In regard to the aversion to miracles, he stands
on the same ground with Strauss and Lang; in protest-
ing against Strauss' elimination of the idea of design,
and especially in demanding a moral order of the world,
he is still more energetic than Lang. He particularly
does not, like Lang, limit the moral order of the world
to the simple empiric causal connection between human
action and its consequences. But on the other hand, by
his opposition to the idea of a personality of God, he
again deviates more than Lang from the true meaning
of Christian religiousness. On page 219 he says: "How,
in spite of the infinite crossings of human action, is
inner conformity to the end in view in general so estab-
lished through that which we call chance, or rather by
means of these crossings, that we can speak of a moral
order of the world ? Men, individuals as well as com-
munities, follow their aims. Hereby there always
results something quite different from that which they
intended and wished. Sublime laws govern above us,
between us, full of mystery in the midst of life ; one of
them in reference to guilt, punishment of guilt, is
called nemesis. Faith in that meaning of the word,
which we regard as a low one [he means the faith which
has its dogmas beyond which the man of the most
recent culture has passed, not knowing . that he also
carries around with him his dogmas, his " new faith"] is
in need of a person who founds, carries out, and executes

j::^^

214 THE THEORIES OF DABWIN.

these laws. But the faith of the monists has no such
need. Why not ? That needs more sufficient demon-
stration."

Certainly it needs more sufficient demonstration.
But this demonstration will never be possible, so long
as we acknowledge the government of a moral order of
the world. For this leads of necessity to faith in a
living God, and this faith demands from our conception
less pretensions than the faith in a kind of system of
spiritual machinery by which chance and the wished-for
are woven together, without this system proceeding
from a highly spiritual and ethical intelligence. It
nevertheless must be acknowledged that Vischer, from
the standpoint of ethical need, vindicates the position
and truth of religion, as he also beautifully and cor-
rectly defines its position in reference to morality, in
saying that morality makes the demand, religion gives
the strength to meet it.

From another side, Gustav Jager makes a compro-
mise between Darwinism and religion in his five lectures
on "Die Darwinsche Theorie und ihre Stellung zu
Moral und Religion " ('*The Darwinian Theory and its
Position in Reference to Morality and Religion "), Stutt-
gart, J. Hoffmann, 1869,

He makes still more valid concessions to religion and
Christianity than Lang and Vischer ; directly opposes
materialistic monism; leaves to faith in a personal God,
in the divinity of Christ, in individual immortality, in
the answer to prayer beyond the psychological effect, in.
miracles, in short, to the full contents of Christian
religiousness, their weight and truth; and in that respect
we would have to rank him in the following group, if he

REFORM Of religion THROUGH DARWINISM. 216

did not by his manner of proving these concessions
exclude himself from it, and rank himself in that group
of which we treat in the present section.

According to his opinion, Darwinism gives to re-
ligion, if not new contents (although these contents are
entirely subject to revision according to Darwinism),
still a wholly new foundation, and, indeed, a foundation
of subjective religiousness, as well as of the objective
contents of religion, only from the standpoint of its
practical usefulness in the struggle for existence. The
faith in a personal God, in immortality, in redemp-
tion by the God-Man Jesus Christ, in the hearing of
prayer, in help in danger even to the extent of miracles,
strengthens man, gives to him a superiority to those who
do not have that faith and who do not have the habit of
prayer, and therefore is so far the best weapon in the
struggle for existence; and herein lies the truth of re-
ligion, especially of the Christian religion, as the most
successful weapon in the struggle for existence which
takes place through the whole creation, from the lowest
organisms up to the highest spiritual life of mankind.

We willingly admit that Christianity has cer-
tainly proved itself by far the strongest and most suc-
cessful means of education to mankind, and that, if we
must once express this experience in the Darwinian
mode of speaking, we can express it as above. But
with the attempt to make the truth of religion and the
truth of its contents, even if only subjective, dependent
only and solely upon the proof of its itsefidness^ nobody,'
either friend or foe, will be satisfied. The adversaries
of religion and Christianity, perhaps with the exception
of Biichner, will admit that Christianity has for some

216 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

time been a quite useful weapon to mankind in the
struggle for existence ; but they will say that they are
just about to replace it by a still more useful weapon; and
the advocates of religion and Christianity likewise can
not agree upon a mere grounding of their religion upon
need which puts upon them every day the possibility of
changing it for something still more useful. Both
friend and foe will join in the conviction that objective
truth is always the best guarantee for subjective success;
and thus both will pass beyond the purely utilitarian
apologetics or polemics to the questions as to the objec-
tive reality of the contents of Christian religiousness.

PRACE BETWEEN RELIGION AND DARWINISM. 217

CHAPTER ni.

PEACE BETWEEN RELIGION AND DARWINISM.

§1. Darwin^ Wallace^ R. Owen, Asa Oray^ Mivart^ Mc-
Cosh^ AndersoHy K. E. i?. Baer^ Alex. Braun^ Brau"
hachy etc.

It still remains for us to take a glance at those who
think religion and Darwinism, and Christianity and Dar-
winism, hold toward one another reciprocally amicable
relations.

In the first place, we have to mention Darwin him-
self. In his earliest work, "Origin of Species," he
repeatedly gives this opinion, as on page 421 : "I see
no good reason why the views given in this volume
should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is
satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions
are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made
by man, namely, tht^ law of the attraction of gravity,
was also attacked by Leibnitz ' as subversive of natural,
and inferentiaFly of revealed, religion.' A celebrated
author and divine has written to me that he ' has grad-
ually learned to see that it is just as noble a conception
of the Deity to believe that He created a few original
forms capable of self-development into other and needful
fornix, as to telieve that He required a fresh act of crea-
tion to supply the voids caused by the action of His
laws.'" On page 428, he speaks of the laws which
God has impressed on matter ; and at the end of his
work, on page 429, he says : " There is grandeur in this

^iMv:

218. THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

view of life, with its several powers, having been orig-
inally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into
one." In his " Descent of Man," he also protests against
the reproach that his views are irreligious, and says :
" The birth both of the species and of the individual are
equally parts of that grand sequence of events which
our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance."
In treating of the question as to the development of the
moral instincts;, he says : "If he [man] breaks through
the fixed habits of his life, he will assuredly feel dissatis-
faction. He must likewise avoid the reprobation of the
one God or gods in whom, according to his knmoledge or
superstition, he may believe." And furthermore he
remarks : '* The question whether there exists a Creator
and Ruler of the Universe, has been answered in the
affirmative by some of the highest intellects- that have
ever existed."

It is true, all these expressions about religion are
very general ; but since in his works we do not find any
utterance contrary to them and hostile to religion, we
have a right to rank the celebrated originator of the
whole agitation among those naturalists who are con-
scious of the limits of the realms of the natural and the
religious, and are convinced of the possibility of a
haraiony between the two. For his casual utterances
against a '' creation " of single species always combine
with. the word creation the idea of that direct creation
out of nothing, without intervening agencies, which is
entirely correct for the idea of the first origin of the
universe, but which for the origin of the single forma-
tions within the universe is neither asked for by the
religious view of the world, nor established by the Holy

^vS^ig^V/-:.:- ■'■■ :- -•: ■■■.:■ ->- ■..-:;'•- - ^•'^- ■ ^s^'i^:^^M

PEACE BETWEEN RELIGION AND DARWINISM. 219

Scriptures, nor by a cautiously reasoning theology,
although it very often controls the conceptions of nat-
uralists as well as of theologians. Now, while Darwin
rejects the idea of a sudden appearance of a new species
out of nothing — or, as he once expressed himself in his
"Origin of Species," the idea "that at innumerable
periods in the earth's history ceiiain elemental atoms
have been commanded suddenly to flash into living
tissues," — and he is no doubt right in rejecting it, — still
at the same time he does not deny the dependence of
the successive origin of a new species on a divine author.
But in calling that process creation and this one not, he
gives the appearance of an opposition to the religious
idea of creation — an appearance of which the greater
part of the guilt is borne by those theologians who define
the idea of the creation, even of a single form, in a
manner which is only proper for the idea of the first
origin of the universe.

It is true, we could rank Darwin still more readily
among the scientists who are at peace with all the claims
of religion, did he not in his "Descent of Man," when
enumerating the "excellent naturalists and philoso-
phers " who with him reduce the jx^digree of man to
lower forms, mention names of men who in their works
firmly unite Darwinism and monistic natui*alism or even
materialism, and expressly protest against a separation
of their naturo-historical results and their philosophic
points of view. We mean Biichner and Hackel. The
latter^s "Natural History of Creation," he especially
praises: "If this work had appeared before my essay
had been written, I should probably never have com-
pleted it. Almost all the conclusions at which I have

220 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

arrived I find confirmed by this naturalist," etc. The
entire silence in regard to the anti - Christian results
which these two authors derive from their naturo-histori-
cal premises, makes Darwin's own position in reference
to religion again very uncertain. It seems that Darwin
in his theology is not only inclined to theism, but, fol-
lowing the traditions of his countrymen of the last
century, to a quite cool and superficial deism, and that
he perimts himself to be too much impressed by the
anti-teleological deductions of many of his followers,
and to be induced to separate in his later publications
the Creator and his work more widely than he has done
in the beginning. For while in his "Origin of the
Species," and in his "Descent of. Man" he nowhere
contests a teleological view of nature, and rejects the idea
of single creations only under the erroneous supposition
that the idea of the creation of the single also excludes
the action of intervening agencies, we find, on the other
hand, in " The Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals " a . passage which, though in a reserved way,
seems to give just as much support to the adversaries of
teleology as to its advocates, if, indeed, not more. He
says (page 338): " The belief that blushing was specially
designed by the Creator is opposed to the general theory
of evolution, which is now so largely accepted ; but it
forms no part of my duty here to argue on the general
question. Those who believe in design will find it
difficult to account for shyness being the most frequent
and efficient of all the causes of blushing," etc. This
inconsistency in his utterances has its origin in the fact
that the strength of this naturalist does not seem to lie
in logical philosophic thought.

fej^:.:^--;:'<^:^.

*— * - — — '

.^uijra

PEACE BETWEEN RELIGION AND DARWINISM. 221

A. R. Wallace, the independent and contempor-
aneous co-originator of the Darwinian theory, still more
evidently and more decidedly expresses himself favor-
ably as to the position of this theory in reference to
religion. In his "Natural Selection," he says on page
368: **It does not seem an improbable conclusion that
all force may be will-force; and thus, that the whole
universe is not merely dependent on, but actually is, the
WILL of higher intelligences or of one Supreme Intelli-
gence."

He pronounces the belief that God created the new
species in "continual interference" with the regular
process of things, a lower conception, " a limitation of
the Creator's power" (page 280), hence something
which he makes obj ection to directly in the interest of
religion. Moreover, he sees, especially in those stages
which caused the physical development of man, and
which became the material basis of his spiritual produc-
tions, moments of development which cannot be ex-
plained by natural selection or by a coincidence of
material circumstances', but only by the preformation
of the body after a certain design and for a certain pur-
pose.

Richard Owen, the celebrated anatomist and palaeon-
tologist of England, who, aft^r having for a long time
resisted the Darwinian theories, lately accepted the idea
of development and rejected that of selection, takes a
similar position. In the last part of his ''Comparative
Anatomy of Vertebrates," which was issued separately
in 18^3 under the title " Derivative Hypothesis of Life
and Species," he sees in the causes which produced the
new species only the servants of a predestinating intelii-

222 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

gent will — for instance, the horse predestinated and pre-
pared for man ; and on page 90 of vol. V.. of "Trans-
actions of the Zoological Society,'' he says, "that
natural evolution, throa^^h secondary causes, by means of
slow physical and organic operations through long ages,
is not the less clearly recognizable as the act of all-
adaptive Mind, because we have abandoned the old
error of supposing it the result of a primary, direct and
sudden act of creational construction The suc-
cession of species by continuously operating law is not
necessarily a * blind operation.' Such law, however
designed in the properties and successions of natural
objects, intimates, nevertheless, a preconceived progress.
Organisms may be evolved in orderly succession, stage
after stage, towards a foreseen goal, and the broad
features of the course may still show the unmistakable
impress of Divine volition."

Professor Huxley, of London, the zealous and oft-
mentioned advocate of the descent of man from the ape,
says — what is so energetically contested by his warmest
friends in Germany, by Biichner, Hackel, O. Schmidt,
and others — ^that the teleological and the mechanical
mode of viewing nature by no means exclude one
another. He does this, of course, without going into
any details of the religious question.

Asa Gray, an eminent and highly esteemed Ameri-
can botanist, who is particularly respected by Darwin,
and is supported also by Sir Charles Lyell in " The
Antiquity of Man," says in his essay on " Natural Selec-
tion not Incompatible with Natural Theology, a Free
Ebcamination of Darwin's Treatise " (London, Triibner,
1861), on page 29 : " Agreeing that plants and animals

r-i

':♦

,v<

PEACE BETWEEN RELIGION AND DARWINISM. 223

were produced by Omnipotent fiat does not exclude the
idea of natural order and what we call secondary causes.
The record of the^^ — ' Let the earth bring forth grass,'
etc., 'the living creature,' etc., — seems even to imply
them, and leads to the conclusion that the different
species were produced through natural agencies." And
on page 38: " Darwin's hypothesis concerns the order
and not the cau&e^ the how and not the why of the phe-
nomena, and so leaves the question of design just where
it was before." And finally, in a passage which is
adopted by Sir Charles Lyell (ib. page 505): *' We may
imagine that events and operations in general go on in
virtue simply of forces communicated at the first, and
without any subsequent interference, or we may hold
that now and then, and only now and then, there is a
direct interposition of the Deity ; or, lastly, we may
suppose that all the changes are carried on by the
immediate orderly and constant, however infinitely
diversified, action of the intelligent efficient Cause."

Mivart, an English Catholic, most decidedly advo-
cates a reconcilability of Darwinian views, and especially
of the evolution theory, as he establishes it with the
full contents of Christian orthodoxy, in his remarkable
book ''On the Genesis of Species" (London and New
York, Macmillan & Co., 2d. ed. 1871), in which we find
a great many independent naturo-historic^l investiga-
tions. He assigns to the selection theory only a sub-
ordinate position, but on the other hstnd accepts an
evolution^ and, in close connection with R. Owen,
explains it from inner and innate impulses of develop-
ment of the organisms, which act now more slowly and
gradually, now more by impulses ; he places man as to

224 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

his physical part entirely among the effects of the evo-
lution principle, although, taking into consideration some
utterances of Wallace, he thinks it possible, but not
probable, that the creation and the preceding stage of
his physical nature is also diflerent from that of animals.
But, on the other hand, in fully adopting the old scho-
lastic creationism, he supposes a special creation of the
aovl^ a separation of body and soul, which in this form
is very contestable, and might better have been replaced
by a separation of natural and rational or of physico-
psychical and pneumatical parts of his being. With such
a view of nature, he finds the fullest harmony between
the evolution theory and religion, reconciles the plausi-
ble antagonism of creation and development by dividing
the idea of creation into a primary creation (creation of
the beginning out of nothing) and into a secondary cre-
ation (creation through intervening agencies, although
that which is produced through them is still a creation and
a work of the Creator), and declares his conviction that
what is acting according to law in nature also stands
under the causation and government of God like the first
beginning of the universe — a postulate of our primary
views without which the whole universe and our exist-
ence in it would harden into a cold mechanism without
consolation or ideality.

Finally, at the assembly of the Evangelical Alliance
in New York (October, 1873), there were heard many
voices of eminent advocates of a theistic and Christian
view of the world, which maintained the full consistency
of an evolution theory with religion and Christianity.
McCosh, for instance, as referee in the philosophic
section as to the relation of the evolution theory an4

■..:^.v

V l_^ -^ -•

PEACE BETWEEN RELIGION AND DARWINISM. 225

religion, said* : " I am riot sure that religion is entitled
to insist that every species of insects has been created by
.a special ^^ of Grod, with no secondary agent employed."
And still more plainly and more courag;eously, President
Anderson, of the Univei'sity of Rochester, in his very re-
markable address, speaks alx)ut the unnecessary and un-
worthy fear of many Christian men, when they see the
appearance of hypotheses with which science operates.
At the end. of his address, he says: *'The evidence
for the existence of a personal Creator cannot be affect-
ed by any considerations .drawn from the mode, relative
rapidity, or the nature of the proximate antecedents and
consequences in the creative pixxjess.''

From German sources, we can note fewer utterances
of a friendly or at least neutral position between Dar-
winism arid religion. For this fact there are many
reasons. One inay be, that on the continent in general
there is a smaller number of those who, without being,
specialists in both realms, unite active religious interest
and reasoning with a thorough study of those naturo-
historical questions, while in Great Britain physico-theo-
logical studies have been for generations traditional and
the object of interest for the majority of educated men.
A second reason, indeed, is that some of the warmest
scientific advocates of Darwinism at once attacked also
theism and Christianity ; hence with all those who did
not have time and incitement enousch to study the ques-
tions for themselves, they necessarily created the opinion
that Darwinism really attacks even the fundamentals of

♦Compare * * History, Essays, and Orations of the 6th General Con-
ference of the Evangelical Alliance," New York, Harper Bros., 1874»
p. 264-271.
15

v22G THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

-Teligion, and their whole tendency had but a repellmg
influence even on scientists of deeper spiritual and ethical
disposition and need. Finally, in Germany as well as on
vthc whole continent, the number of those who do not
-care for religious questions in general, and who there-
fore interest themselves in the scientific questions
^brought up by Darwin, but do not trouble themselves
farther for their position in reference to religion and
<Jhristianity, is unfortunately larger than in Great
Britain.

Nevertheless, such friendly voices are not entirely
.ivanting in our country. The botanist Alex. Braun says,
in his beautiful and significant lecture on the importance
;of development in natural history, p. 48 : *^ Some said
-that the descent theory denies creation, and it is true,
Ihe Darwinians themselves caused this opinion by con-
trasting creation and development as irreconcilable ideas.
But this contrast does not actually exist, for as soon as
^e look upon creation as a divine effect, not merely
belonging to the past, or appearing in single abrupt
movements, but connected and universally present in
time, we can seek and find it nowhere else but in the
natural history of development itself. * * Theolo-
gians themselves, according to the Mosaic documents,
acknowledge a history of creatioxi ; natural history,
looked upon from its inner side, is nothing else but the
farther carrying out of the history of creation."

Even K. E. von Baer, who expressly contests the
idea of selection, thinks it only scientifically indefensible,
but not anti-religious ; an opinion also held by Wigand.

A similar friendly relation between Darwinism and
religion is advocated by Braubach, in his publication,

•»

.Zj-

• . ^ •■■..•.-
. » ..,■■- ~ j^ -^ 2. " _-;

PEACE BETWEEN RELIGION AND DARWINISM. 227

^'Religion, Moral und Philosophic der Darwin'schen
Artlehre nach ihrer Natur und ihrem Character als
kleine Parallele menschlich - geistiger Entwicklung "
("Religion, Morality, and Philosophy of the Darwinian
Doctrine of Species, as to its Nature and Character ; a
Small Parallel of Human Intellectual Development"),
Neuwied, Hansen, 1869, a publication to which we pay
special attention, since Darwin, in his ''Descent of
Man," twice paid it the honor of a quotation. It is true,
the essay, through its peculiar dependence on an original
and quite arbitrarily grouped scheme, gives the impres-
sion of something very singular, and is not very agree-
ably and easily read ; but it shows such an energetic
union of respect for science and its work and results,
with adhesion to all the fundamentals of Christian truth,
that it has to be mentioned as one of the rare voices
which, even in regard to the realm of nature, pronounce
the fullest harmony between religion and science. Brau-
bach finds in the animal kingdom the elements of all the
spiritual life of mankind, even of religion and morality ;
but everything is still wrapped in the lowest stage of
sensuality. Nevertheless, he assigns to mankind, by its
possession of the idea of infinity^ something absolutely
new, absolutely superior to the animal world, and sees
the Darwinian ideas, even in the religious and moral
possession of mankind, confirmed by the fact that they
develop themselves on the way from the sensual stage
to the rational exactly according to the principles of
Darwin — namely, through transmission with individual
.variability in the struggle for existence, through selec-
tion of the fittest. With special earnestness, he pro-
nounces the indissoluble unity of i*eligion and morality.

— - - — *■*" - ' - - '^ i l l ur i T a Ta ;

. •- -:.»■> ^■

■■■•>-m

228 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

i

and says that religion, as it presents itself upon Darwin- i

ian ffrounds, is a moral reliction. 'a

We find here and there in periodicals many more

Voices which ^pronounce the conviction that, out of the -j

present contest of minds, peace between religion and ;•

science will result . ■

JB. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND .A

MORALITY. -i

'•'I

PRELIMINARY 7IEW. '

We can treat much more briefly of this portion of :j
our task than of the position of the Darwiifians in refer-
ence to the religious question, for the reason that the
contrasts in the ethical realm are far less sharply drawn
than in the religious realm, although in principle they
are not less widely apart. For while there are a great
many men who think that it belongs to good society and
to the indispensable characteristics of high modern edu-
cation to show either cold indiflference or direct hos-
tility in reference to religion and to the whole religious
question; while a great many of the much-read works
of helle lettres never tire of teaching the reading public
that the religious question really no longer exists for the
educated man, on the other hand, nobody, not even the
extremest atheist and enemy of reliorion, wishes to
renounce the reputation of having moral principles.
Thus it happens that the positions taken by the Darwin-
ians in reference to the ethical question are less varied
than those taken by them in reference to the religious
question. And we may also be brief for another reason,

:-• y ^^^i: ji&^Mj^:^-:^

PRELIMINARY VIEW. 229

namely, that by reviewing the position of the Darwin-
ians in reference to the religious question, we have essen-
tially prepared the way for the principal questions which
will have to be treated.

We shall group the utterances upon the relation of
the Darwinian theories to morality as we did those in
regard to the relation of Darwinism to religion ; and
shall first let the advocates of an irreconcilableness
between the two speak, then those advocating a reform-
ative influence of Darwinism upon morality, and finally
those striving for neutrality and peace between the two.
We shall have no occasion, except incidentally, to dis-
criminate between the different fundamental principles
and parts of ethics, but shall in the last part of our
work treat of the question independently. In making
subdivisions for them here, we should but cause infinite
repetitions, unnecessarily complicate our review, and
render it more difficult.

230 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

CHAlPTER IV.

ANTAGONISM BETWEEN DARWINISM AND MORALITY,

§ 1. Objections to Darxoinism from ari Ethical St€uidpoint.

From what we said at the beginning of the preced-
ing preliminary view, it is evident that we have to look
for the advocates of an irreconcilablenjess between moral-
ity and Darwinism, not in the camp of the followers of
the latter, but only in that of its adversaries. It is true,
such advocates were never wanting. In pamphlets and
journals, it has been often enough said that Darwinism
cuts through the nerve of life, not only of religion, but
also of morality.

It was demonstrated that in making man a mere pro-
duct of nature, and degrading him to a being that is
nothing else but a naore highly developed animal, Dar-
winism takes from human personality its value, from the
realms of morality its dignity, and from its demands
their autonomy. In making the struggle for existence
the principle of all development and, by extending it to
the development and social relations of man, at the same
time the human social principle, it puts in place of self-
denial and love the principle of egoism and boorishness
and the right of the stronger, gives full course to the
imchaining of all animal passions, and coquettes with all
the emotions which, flattering the animal part of man,

(

..■•.*••,■,.•

ANTAGONISM BETWEEN DARWINISM AND MORALITY. 231

aim at the subvei*sion of all that exists and at th0
destruction of the ideal acquisitions of mankind. In
tracing everything which constitutes the higher position
and dignity of man back to his own work, and i)ermit-:
ting it to be worked out of physical, spiritual, and
ethical brutishness, in slow development and effort^
closely related to the animal kingdom, it fosters and
nourishes haughtiness in an intolemble way. And
finally, in breaking off and denying the dependence of
man upon God, and leading to mechanical determinism,:
it destroys the deepest and most effective motive to
moral action — the tracing of the moral law to the author-
ity of the divine Law-giver, and the consciousness of an
individual moral responsibility.

It cannot be denied that many of the most zealous
Darwinians gave too much cause for such a conception
and representation of the ethical consequences of theii:
system. In view of the fact that they applied the selec-
tion principle, with its most radical consequences, to
the origin and development of mankind, and that they
elevated the same to the ethical and social principle 06
mankind and did not permit the acceptance of any new
and higher agencies in mankind except those already
active in the animal and the organic world, and that they
gladly treated this selection principle also in the social
and ethical realm as a struggle for existence, it was
simply an entirely logical conclusion that the advocates
of the moral nobility of mankind reproached such a
reproduced Darwinism with degrading the moral dignity
of man and with replacing love by egoism. Besides, in
view of the fact that they declared materialistic monism,
even the most naked atheism, the only conclusion of

232 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

Darwinism, and extended their mechanistic explanation
of the world to a detemiinism in -the highest degree
mechanistic, and, carried to its utmost limit, to a denial
of human freedom, it was not to be wondered at that
those who recognize in theism the basis of all life worthy
of man, and in the freedom of man one of the most
precious pearls in the crown of his human dignity and
of his creation in the image of God, complained of Dar-
winism's taking from morality its strongest motive and
from moral action its responsibility. And, finally, in
view of the fact that those who thus express themselves
in their works showed but rarely, or not at all, some of
the noblest fruits of moi*al education, such as respectful
treatment of adversaries, humbleness and tact, they
could not themselves reasonably complain that there was
ascril)ed to their doctrine an influence detrimental to
moral education. All this we find abundantly confirmed
in the publications of Biichner and Hackel, and in many
articles of the '' Ausland."

But the question is, whether those Darwinians who
drew these conclusions were by their scientific investiga-
tions obliged to draw them, or whether they did not
rather reach their religious and ethical view of the
world by quite other ways, and whether they did not in
a wholly arbitrary and irresponsible manner make ex-
tensive use of Darwinism in this anti-religious and ethi-
cally bbjectional direction — a fact which we shall try to
prove in the last part of our investigation.

Of course the ^Darwinians who spoke thus, did not
intend to injure the moral principle, but only to purify
and reform it; and therefore we shall have to speak of
them in the following section.

REFORU OF HOBALmr THROUGH DABWINI8U. 233

CHAPTER V.

REFORM OP MORALITY ■ THROUGH DARWINISM.

§ 1. The Materialists and Monists. Darwin and the
English Utilitarians, Grustav Jdger,

Among those who ascribe *to Darwinism a morally
reforming influence, we have to mention in the first
place^the materialists. It is true that even before the
appearance of Darwinism they established their own
moral principle of naturalistic determinism and of the*
education of man only by science and enlightenment, in
opposition to a morality which rests on the principle of
the eternal value of th^ individual, of full moral respon-
sibility, of the holiness of the moral law, and of a divine
author of it ; they stigmatized "the ethical requirement
of aiming at the eternal welfare of the soul as a lower
stage of morality in comparison with their own, which
carries in itself the reward of virtue; and they declared
Christianity and humanity, Christian morality and the .
morality of humanity, two things irreconcilably opposed
to one another. But in having taken possession of
Darwinism as their monopoly, they have made it the
basis of new attacks upon the present moral principle
of Christendom ; and therefore we have here to mention
them with their moral system.

BUchner, in his lecture on " Gottesbegriff und dessen

,,.•.-

"t

•

;. . ■mi'

234; THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

Bedeutung " (" The Idea of God and its Importance "),
replaces the moral principle (which in his opinion is
nothing innate but something acquired) by education,
learning, freedom and well-being; says that only atheism
or philosophic monism leads to freedom, reason, pro-
gi-ess, acknowledgment of true humanity^^to human-
ism ; that this humanism seeks the motives of its
morality not in the external relations to an extramun-
dane God, but in itself and in the welfai-e of mankind ;
and that infidels often, even as a rule, have excelled by
moral conduct, while Christianity has originated many
more crimes than it has hindered, and it would no
longer be possible to establish with real Christians a
vital community as at present understood. He declares
the utterance of Madame de Stael, that " to comprehend
everything means to forgive everything," the truest
word ever spoken ; and concludes his lecture with the
remarks that the more man renounces his faith and con-
fides in his own power, his own reason, his o^vn reflexion,
the happier he will be and the more successful in his
struggle for existence.

Strauss in " The Old Faith and the New," a publica-
tion which cei-taitily has to be ranked here, for the
reason that in it he founds on Darwinism his whole
knowledge of the world, on the ground of which he
wishes to arrange life, appears to be much more decent,
and in the practical consequences much more conserva-
tive, than Biichner; but essentially stands upon quite
the same ground. Hackel, Oskar Schmidt, and (as to
his linguistic Darwinism) W. Bleek, gi'oup themselves
around Strauss, partly with, partly without express
reference to his deductions.

* * •

,..-.1 »*.»<.>

r ■ ■ 1.

REFORM OF MORALITY THROUGH DARWINISM. 235

Strauss arrives at a peculiar inconsequence, but
one well worthy of notice, when, in place of the
struggle for existence which, according to the con-
clusions of those who also reduce morality to Dar-
winism, is still the spiritus rector of moral jdevelop-
ment in mankind, and yet cannot of itself possibly lead
to the morally indispensable requirements and virtues
of self-sacrifice and of mere subordination under the
moral idea, he suddenly substitutes a going of man
beyond mere nature, and herewith a moi*al principle,
which can never be deduced from Darwinism alone, and
which is dii*ectly opposed to monism and pankosmism,
which is to be the basis of his ethics. The I'eader may
compare the manner in which he metaphysically
supports his moral principle when he says: "As
nature cannot go higher, she would go inwards.
Nature felt herself already in the animal, but she
wifihed to know lierself also. ... In man, nature en-
deavored not merely to exalt, but to transcend herself. '^'^
Ulrici, the philosopher, in his reply to Strauss, has
pointed out in sharp terms this inconsequence, as well
as the other, that from the ground of a blind necessity
which does not know anything of a higher and a lower,
the difference of higher and lower, good and bad,
i^ational and i^Tational, cannot at all be maintained ; and
that the requirement of a progress cannot at all be
made, and its.idea not at all be given. In this very per-
ceptible inconsistency, Strauss calls that morality which
he requires, " the relation of man to the idea of hi^kind.^
To realize the latter in himself, is the summary of his
duties toward himself; actually to recognize and pro-
mote the equality of the kind in all the othere, is the

•^ * - ■

^^^^■•^

"_-n--. i " -V

236 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

summary of his duties towards othei's. He opposes
the internal satisfaction which originates therein, to the
"rough " idea of a reward of virtue and piety, coming
from without^ which, in order to connect both, is in need
of a God. And he again reaches that inconsequence
which from his metaphysical standpoint is entirely
without motive, but as to itself only worthy to be recog-
nized, when in another formula of his mora.1 imperative
he says: "Ever remember that thoii art human, not
inerdy a TUitural production^

It is also this representation and realization of the
idea of the kind^ which those who combine with their
Darwinism a negation of theism have mostly established
before the appearance of the work of Strauss as the
highest moral principle, and to which they are also led
most naturally by Darwin's deduction of morality from
the social instincts. Thus, Wilhelm Bleek, m the preface
to his "Ursprung der Sprache" ("Origin of Language''),
says (page XIII): "To aim at the inner and outer har-
mony of his genus in one or the other way, and to
promote the correct relations of the different parts to
one another in their reciprocal connections and in the
greater parts of the whole organism (family, commu-
nity, nation), are the highest visible designs of human
existence, which must by themselves incite man to noble
actions and to virtuous deeds. In the performance of
this task lies the highest happiness which seems to be
given to our species,' a happiness accessible by everyone
in his own way. Neither the fruit of eternal punish-
ment nor the hope of an individual happiness, is really
capable as a truly saving idea to- elevate man to a higher
existence; even if we take no account of the .fact that

• - - - -■

REFORM OP MORALrrr THROUGH DARWINISBi.

237

each of these two fundamental dogmas of the vulgar
dogmatism makes but refined egoism the lever of its
ethics."

Hackel alone, in his "Natural History of Creation,"
with his utterances as to Christianity, morality, and the
history of the world, again sinks down to the level of
the coarseness of Biichner, ?ind even below it On page
19, vol. I, he entirely contests the reality of the moral
order of the world, and continues: "If we contemplate
the common life, and the mutual relations between plants
and animals (man included), we shall find everywhere and
at aU tiines^ the very opposite of that kindly and peace-
ful social life which the goodness of the Creator ought
to have prepared for his creatures — we shall rather find
eoerywhere a pitiless, most embittered struggle of all
against all. Nowhere in nature, no matter where we
turn our eyes, does that idyllic peace, celebrated by the
poets, exist; we find everywhere a struggle and a striving
to annihilate neighbors and competitors. Passion and
selfishness^ conscious or unconscious^ is everywhere the
motive force of Ufe. Man in this respect certainly
forms no exception to the rest of the animal world."
On page 237, vol. I, he professes the most extreme
naturalistic determinism: "The will of the animal, as
well as that of man^ is never free. The widely spread
dogma of the freedom of the will is, from a scientific
point of view, altogether untenable." And on page 170,
vol. I, he even says: "If, as we maintain, natural selec-
tion is the great active cause which has {)roduced the
whole wonderful variety of organic life on the earth, all
the interesting phenomena of human life must also be
explicable from the same cause. For man is after all

•J
1

238 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

only a most highly-developed vertebrate animal, and all
aspects of human life have their parallels, or, more oor- '\
rectly, their lower stages of development, in the animal i
kingdom. The whole history of nations^ or what is
called universal history^ must therefore he expliccMe Jy
means of natural selection^ — must be a physico-chemical
process^ depending upon the interaction of adaptation and
inheritance in the struggle for life. And this is actually
the case.^' That in his ethical naturalism he sees a real
reform of morality, he expressly declares on the page
next to the last of his "Natural History of Creation'':
"Just as this new monisMc philosophy first opens up to
us a true understanding of the real universe, so its
application to practical human life must open up a new
road towards m.oral perfection.'*'^ (Vol. 11, p. 367.)

In the low conception of morality and its principle,
Hackel is perhaps seconded only by Seidlitz who says
in his " Die Darwin'she Theorie" ("Darwin's Theory "),p.
198 : "Rational and moral life consist in the satisfaction
of all physical functions, in correct proportion and rela-
tion to one another. Man is immoral through excessive
satisfaction of one function and through neglect of the
others."

As in the religious question, so in the ethical, Carneri
also takes a peculiar position. In reducing all the phe-
nomena of existence, together with the whole spiritual
life of mankind, to a close development of nature
according to the causal law, in expi'essly grouping also
the utterances of the will of man under this law of an
.absolute necessity, in fully adopting Darwin's doctrine
as the wholly satisfactory key for the comprehension of
ihe entire development of nature up to the history of

L«i''i"- ■ - ■" '*- -■- •i-^'-^--|-^V--->f|Mffl

'i ■'''■

REFORM OF MORALITY THROUGH DARWINISM. 239

mankind, in advocating an absolutely monistic determin-
ism and a nearly exclusive dependence of the efficacy
of moral principles on the theoretic cultivation of the
mind, on reasoning and education, he, as before men-
tioned, stands on exactly the same ground with
materialists and monists among whom he expressly
ranks himself; in the inconsequence with which he
makes concessions to the power of the idea and the
ideal over man — concessions which could never be
concluded from a mere immanent process of nature —
he is closely related to Strauss. But it is peculiar that,
although entirely dependent in his reasoning on that
monistic view of the world, and that Darwinian view
of nature, he defines his ethical developments and his
reflections on the organizations of human life in a relative
independence, which again separates him as moralist
from these before-mentioned monists and materialists,
and rather ranks him, as we have seen in Chap. 1, § 4,
in the line of the disciples of Spinoza and Hegel. From
this it can also be explained, how it could happen that in
criticisms and reviews of Darwinism and its literature
the standpoint which he takes could find such different
and diametrically opposed expositions. While, for
instance, the ''Beweis des Glaubens," in the March
number of 1873, thinks that Cameri wishes to seek on
Darwinian ground a new and better basis for morality
than we had heretofore ; while Hackel in the preface to
the third edition of his *' Natural History of Creation,-'
page XXIX, mentions the publication of Carneri with
the greatest praise, earnestly recommends all theologians
and philosophers to read it, and greets it as the first suc-
jcessful attempt at applying fruitfully the monistic view

W-^-fr^ ■ '■■■

■^^?2^Mmi&J^^.^iV:--<\^

240 THE THEORIES OP DARWIN.

of the world, as established by Darwinism, to the realm
of practical philosophy and at showing that the immense
progress of our knowledge of the world caused by the
descent theory has only the most beneficial effect upon
the further progressing development of mankind in
practical life; — a criticism in fhe "Ausland" (8 April,
1872, No. 15), calls the same publication "an attempt at
harmonizing Darwin's hypothesis with the current views
of ethics, and at showing that those doctrines cannot be
sustained which result as strictly logical conclusions
from Darwin's theory, and which are opposed to the
present views of morality."

In returning from this digression to Darwinism in its
purest form, to Darwin himself, we have in the first
place to resume the discussion entered upon as to the
way and manner in which, according to Darwin, self-
determination is originated. Love and sympathy, moral
feeling (with this definition he seems to point at the con-
sciousness of moral freedom of will and of responsibil-
ity), and conscience, are to him very important elements
of morality ; and in the moral disposition of man he
sees the greatest of all differences between man and
animal. He also willingly acknowledges the powerful
impulse w^hich morality has from religion, when he says
(^'Descent of Man," Vol. II, page 347): "With the
more civilized races, the conviction of the existence of
an all-seeing Deity has had a potent influence on the
advance of morality." From these and all his other
deductions, we see that Darwin in no way intends to
modify the maxims of moral action ; and if under the
expression "reform of morality," with which we have
headed the present chapter, we should understand but

-■ja" ^<

REFORM OF MGRALTTY THROUGH DARWINISM. 241

a reform of moral action itself, we should without hesi-
tation have to rank Darwin with the next group, and
not with that of which we now treat ; just as in our
review of the position of Darwinisni in reference to the
religious question, we had to rank him with those who
take a neutral and peaceful position in reference to
religion.

But if he does not touch upon morality in the max-
ims, he nevertheless comes forth in the ikeory of moral
action, in the science of morality with reformatory
claims, — namely, with the fact that reduces the whole
moral life to those agencies which are already active in
the preceding animalic stage. It is true, he makes, as
we have seen, a distinction in the genetic derivation of
morality. He wholly reduces love and sympathy to
social instincts which man has in common with the
animal ; and he lets the formal motives of moral action,
sense of duty and conscience, originate through the high
development of intelligence and other spiritual forces,
and to be increased and transmitted by custom and
inheritance, if those are present. But, on the other
hand, development of intelligence is to him an exclusive
product of the preceding stage on which it was devel-
oped, and thus, in his opinion, entire morality, notwith-
standing that' double derivation, certainly has purely and
exclusively the natural basis as its origin. If that is
once the standpoint to which man sees himself led, he
has, in order to reason logically, but a double choice.
He must either say that a development out of a natural
basis can possibly be consistent with the appearance of
a new and higher principle, or must give up the auton-
omy of the moral law, and leave the moral action of
16

'A'. V

242

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

man, even in his maxims, to the unsteady flowing of
development, or even of arbitrariness, and to the degree
of education and intelligence of subjectivity. Neither
the one nor the other is done by Darwin. It is true, on
the one hand he shows that modesty, so often exhibited
by him, of the investigator who does not wish to express
any opinion on questions regarding which he has not yet
attained a mature judgment ; but on the other hand he
Also manifests the same aversion to going beyond purely
naturo-historical speculations which, as we have seen in
Part I, Book 11, Chapter I, § 1, hindered him from
obtaining a clear conception of the importance of the
question as to the origin of self-consciousness and of
moral self-determination, and the same want of sequence
in reasoning, which, as we have found in Chap. IH, pre-
vented him from giving an affirmative or negative de-
cision in such an important question, as whether a divine
end is to be observed in the processes of the world.

In this naturalization of ethical principles, he is
closely related to that peculiar moral-philosophic ten-
dency in England, which long before Darwin's appear-
ance, took its origin in John Stuart Mill, but which now,
in the closest connection with Darwin's principles, has
its main advocate in Herbert Spencer, and is commonly
called the utilitarian tendency. We understand by this
that conception of the moral motive which allows the
moral good, however it may be ideally separated from
the useful in the developed condition of mankind at the
present time, in its origin to be developed at the outset
from the same origin as the useful, — namely, from the
sensation of like and dislike ; a theory of utility which
Sir John Lubbock still tried to complete and deepen by

I , . -•„

■,.^^.LllX^^:l^}^^^

ii^^^

REFORH OF MORALITY THROUGH DARWINISM. 243

the theory of an inheritance of the sensation of author-
ity. Activities which originally proved to be only
useful, were inherited as traditional instinct by the
offspring, and were thus freed from the sensation of the
useful, and acted as authority ; this is the origin of diity^
according to the history of development. Inasmuch as
this philosophic system aims at taking from ethics the
absoluteness of its demands, and at drawing down these
demands into the activities of originating and develop-
ing, it is also to be treated of in this place.

As in the religious question, so in the ethical, Gustav
Jager also stands nearer to a neutral relation between
Darwinism and the hitherto valid principles. He puts
the moral principles the same as the religious, into the
balance of utility to man in his struggle for existence,
and finds it thus easy and to be taken for granted,
that the principles of morality, as they became the
common property of mankind as influenced by Chris-
tianity, really prove themselves, also the most ser-
viceable to mankind. Social life is of more benefit to
man than hermit life ; this reflection leads him to the
moral principle of charity. And as, according to Dar-
winism, rising development shows itself in an increasing
differentiation and more richly organized physical devel-
opment, so the organization of society according 'to the
principle of the division of work is that form of social
life which proves itself the most practical to man ; and
this reflection leads him to the full acknowledgment of
the entire ethical organization of human life and its
tasks.

But, as we saw, in treating of the religious question,
that nobody, neither friend nor foe, could possibly be

244

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

satisfied with the substitution of the category of utility
for that of truth, we are compelled to say, in reference
to the ethical question, that a moral principle which, on
such a foundation, has its basis and authority only in its
utility, is really no authority, and loses its value with
every individual who is unwilling to acknowledge its
utility and thinks another ground of action may be more
useful than the moral.

#

,.-'-^'-^.' ='•-»■.• ^i

PEACE BETWEEN DARWINISM AND MORALTIT. 245

CHAPTER VL

NEUTRALITY AND PEACE BETWEEN DARWINISM

AND MORALITY.

§ 1. Nivart^ Alex, Braun^ and Others,

Evidently a real neutrality between the Darwinian
theories of development and the hitherto vilid ^nd
absolute authority of the moral principle is possible
only, when we deny that the ethical demand is simply a
natural process — although we may perceive its origin
within the limits of a natural process — ^and when we
faU to identify that demand with this process, and do
not deduce it from the latter as its sufficient ground of
explanation; but harmony between the two theories,
in spite of all traces of Darwinism in the scientific parts
of anthropology, is possible when we acknowledge the
moral demand, if once present and valid, in its entire
and, so to speak, its metaphysical independence in its
full value, far exceeding all natural necessity.

It is shown by Mivart that such an absolute author-
ity of the ethical demands, and such an independence
of the whole science of morality, may be brought into
accord with the scientific theories of development. In
his book on "The Genesis of Species," he devotes a
whole chapter to ethical questions. He discriminates,
in the moral good, between the formal good (good
with consciousness and will ' of the good) and the

I

- r I 1 1 n i' I • . ..^- • » • •

246 THE THEORIES OP DARWIN.

material good (good without consciousness and design),
ascribes only the latter to the animal world in its moral
features, and the former exclusively to mankind, and
thus takes ground quite analogous to that held by him
on the religious question, where he includes in the
theory of dQvelopment the physical part of man, but
excludes the intellectual part, with the single qualifica-
tion that in the religious question he unnecessarily
renders his position more difficult by designating this
intellectual or spiritual part by the term "soul."

German authorities, who see in Darwinism only a
scientific question which can be solved by means of
natural investigation, and who therefore, think the
religious and ethical questions but little affected by it,
have expressed themselves in regard to this neutral posi-
tion toward morality still more rarely than as to its
neutrality toward religion. The reason for this is pro-
bably that the independence of moral principles and the
absoluteness of their authority entirely result from
themselves, as soon as we have once admitted theism
and left room in general for a freedom standing above
natural causality— and perhaps it is due to the further
fact that the realm of* the moral is more palpably urged
as a reality and necessity upon even the most indifferent
mind than the realm of religion.

On the other hand, we find frequent utterances which
indirectly refer to the ethical realm — for instance, ex-
pressions in reference to the ethical importance of an
animal descent of man. Alex. Braun says: " yidindssents
to the idea of being appointed lord of the creatures,
but then he may also acknowledge that he is not placed
over his subjects as a stranger, but originated from the

PEACE BETWEEN DARWINISM AND MORALITY. 247

beings whose lord he wishes to be. It is not an un-
worthy idea, but rather an elevating one, that man
constitutes the last and highest member in the ancient
and infinitely rich development of organic nature on our
planet, being connected by the most intimate bonds of
relationship withy the other members, as the latter are
connected among themselves with one another; not a
pernicious parasite on the tree of natui-al life, but the
true son of the blissful mother Nature." In reducing
descent, which he accepts, to a development from an
inner force, and in ascribing to the Darwinian selection,
with its struggle for existence, the value only of a regu-
lator (he adopts this term of Wallace as a very striking
one), Braun, in his concluding appeal to young stud-
ents, calls especial attention to the ethical importance
of a development proceeding from within, saying:
'' Life has its outer and its inner side ; all its works and
ways must follow mechanical laws, but its tasks and aims
belong to a higher realm. We are permitted to take a
glance into this realm through the all-embracing history
of the development of nature, which leads up into our
own inmost being, up to our highest end. Truly pro-
gressive development is the best wish for every youth,"
etc.

Inasmuch as that in which Alex. Braun finds a satis-
faction for the fulfillment of the ethical tasks — namely, a
deeper knowledge of man^s connection with lower nature,
and the pointing to the proper tasks of the development
of mankind, — has thus far been the substance of all
sound systems of moi'ality, we did not mention these
and similar utterances, of which we could gather many
more from other writers, in the preceding part of our

»- '-—:•-

248

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

work — i, e.^ in describing those who ascribe to Darwin-
ism a reformatory influence upon momlity ; but we i-ank
these utterances with those which predict from the
descent theory neither injury to morality nor any espe-
cial enlightenment regarding it.

We have now reached the end of that part of our
work which considers and treats of the views of others.
To our regret, we have been compelled to restrict our-
selves, in this review, to the countries of the English
and German tongues ; the former being the home of
Darwin, the latter our own. We should have preferred
to take into our review also the literature of France and
Belgium, Holland and Italy ; but we feared being able
to give only an incomplete report. Besides, it is in
Germany and Great Britain — and partly also in North
America, related to both in language and origin — where
the Darwinian agitation has taken deepest hold of the
mind ; and, in restricting our report to these countries,
we are not likely to have omitted any view essential to
the consideration of the present question. It is true
that in the other countries named the Darwinian litera-
ture is also rich, and we are well aware of the incom-
pleteness of our report in that respect. But we believe
that we have not omitted any essential views and evi-
dences, even if the names of many of their advocates
have not been mentioned.

It still remains to us to investigate independently the
position of the Darwinian theories, with their philosophic
supplements, in reference to religion and morality : a task
for which we hope to have essentially prepared the way
through the preceding representations and investigations.

^/.

fcTTI ' fii ■

II I I ■ wjl fc i i

-*^ ^ - - - 1^

'^«r .

PRELIMINARY VIEW.

249

BOOK IL

ANALYTICAL.

PRELIMINARY VIEW.

In treating the religious question, we proceed from
the supposition that religion is concerned not only in
the subjective truth of religious impulse and sensation,
but also in the objective truth and reality of its faith,
although it attains these in a different way from natural
science. A religion which should have the authorization
of its existence only in psychology, and which was not
allowed to ask whether the object of its faith also has
objective reality, would stand on a weak basis, and its
end would only be a question of time; for an impulse
which can only be psychologically established, and to
which no real objective necessity could correspond,
must sooner or later either be proven a psychological
error or be eliminated by progressing culture. On the
other hand, if we find a reconcilableness or an irrecon-
cilableness of Darwin's views with the objective
substance of religion, the possible question as to its
reconcilableness or irreconcilableness with subjective
religiousness on the ground of those results wholly
answers itself. In no way, not even in the most indirect,
can we approve that method of book-keeping by which
something can be true in regard to religion and false in
regard to science, or vice-versa; on the contrary, we see

260 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

in all attempts at healing in such a way the rupture
which at present exists in the minds of so many, only a
more emphatic avowal of that rupture.

In treating of the religious question as it affects the
position of Darwinism in reference to the substance and
the objective truth of the religious faith, without going
into a detailed treatment of the question of the reconcil-
ableness of a purely subjective religiousness with the
Darwinian views, it will be of advantage to speak first
of the position of the Darwinian theories in reference to
the basis of all true and sound religion and i*eligiousness
— the t/ieistic vieio of the world. In doing this, we shall
discriminate the purely scientific theories of Darwin
from the philosophic supplements and conclusions
which have been given to and drawn from them, and
shall have to consider each of them separately in con-
nection with the theistic view of the world. If therebv
we shall discover Darwinian views which can be brought
into accord with a theistic view of the world, we shall
also, in order to close our investigation, have to consider
them with those parts of the theology of positive Chris-
tianity which can be affected by the Darwinian questions.

In treating the question of the relation of Darwinism
to morality, our investigation can be somewhat abridged,
because many of the principal questions which have to be
considered have found their solution in what has been
previously said, and partly also because they will present
themselves in a different form.

The principal division in our discussion we shall most
appropriately assign .to ethics, and thus treat first of the
position of Darwinism in reference to the moral princi-
ples, and then treat of this in reference to the concrete

PRELIMINARY VIEW.

261

moral life. Where the question as to the position of
Darwinism in reference to morality occurs, we shall no
longer have to treat of it separately as to the different
aspects of its problems — we should otherwise get lost in
too many repetitions ; but we shall only have to separate
an ethical naturalism which supports itself upon Darwin-
ian grounds, from pure Darwinism, and to treat of each
in turn as to its position in reference to morality.

■- — •■ — ~ ■» " - ,1 *- -

252

THE THEOBIE8 OF DABWW.

A. TBE DABWINTAir THEORIES AITD

RELI9I0N.

CHAPTER I.

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THE THEISTIC VIEW

OP THE WORLD.

A. The Position op Purely Scientific Darwinism in Refer-
ence TO Theism.

§1. Scientific Investigation and Theism. The Idea of

Creation,

At the very beginning of our investigation, we have
to state that the absolute freedom of scientific investiga-
tion lies not only in the interest of natural science, but
just as clearly in the direct interest of religion ; and that
every attempt at limiting the freedom of scientific inves-
tigation in a pretended religious interest, can only have
its cause in the fullest misapprehension of that which the
religious interest requires. For the religious view of the
world consists in this : that it sees in the universe, with
all its inhabitants and processes, the work of an almighty
Creator and Ruler of the world ; and therefore it cannot
be unimportant to it, whether we also have a knowledge
of this work, to a certain extent, whether we make use
of the means which lead to the knowledge of the world,

■>,

• -*

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 253

and whether we make progress in the knowledge, or not.
The religious view of the world sees in every correction
and enrichment of our scientific knowledge only a cor-
rection and enrichment of our knowledge of the way
and manner of the divine creation and action ; and every
such correction and enrichment acts directly as an
incitement to religiousness — although, fortunately for
the universal destination of religion, the degree of our
religiousness is not dependent upon the degree of our
knowledge of nature. Therefore, the religious view of
the world does not throw any barriers in the way of
scientific investigation ; it does not prescribe the route
by which the latter is to reach its aim, and it does not
forbid it any scientific auxiliary nrieans, nor, indeed, any
scientific auxiliary hypothesis, nor does it, so far as the
communication of scientific knowledge is concerned,
inquire after the religious or the irreligious standpoint of
those who offer it such knowledge. In all these directions,
it knows of but one requirement : that of exact and cor-
rect presentation ; in a word, of but one requirement of
tnUh. Real, well-founded, and certain results of natural
science can never come into antagonism with religion ;
for precisely the same thing which in the language
of natural science is called natural causal connection, is
in that of religion called the way and manner of divine
action and government. Wh6re man has adopted any
view, the proving of which, according to its nature,
belongs to natural science, and natural science should
show an error in such a view, he must simply give it
up and surrender the erroneous opinion, that such a view
is to form a constituent part of our religious perception.
Just as decidedly, on the other hand, religion can ask of

254 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

narural science that it should not use speculative views
of religious character, the proving of which belongs to
the science of religion, for the purpose of scientific gen-
eralizations, in case the science of religion should prove
that such views are antagonistic to the nature and the
principles of religion.

Those who, on religious grounds, look with suspicion
upon scientific investigation, are frequently influenced by
two erroneous notions, closely related to one another, with-
out regard to the well-grounded aversion to the atheistic
beauty with which so many scientific works are adorned.
One of these errors is the notion that any object is remote
from divine causality in the degree in which it has the
cause of its origin in the natural connection, and that it
would be easier for us to trace the origin of an object
to the authorship of God, if we could not find any natu-
ral cause of its origin, than if we had knowledge of such
a natural cause. The other error is the notion that the
idea of ''creation" excludes the idea of the action of
secondary causes.

If the first mentioned opinion were correct, those
certainly would be right who identify the progress of
sciences with the progress of atheism ; and ignorance
would then be the most effective protection of piety.
But this opinion is in direct conflict with all sound
religious and scientific reasoning. It is in conflict
with sound religious reasoning : for the religious view
of the world sees in nature itself, with its whole associ-
ation of causes and effects, a work of God ; and as
certainly as, according to the religious view of nature, a
thousand years in the sight of God are but as yesterday
when it is past, just so certainly is an object a work of

■JMi

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 255

God, whether its origin is due to milliards of well-known
secondary causes, which all together are works of God
— as well with reference to the laws which they obey as
to the materials and forces in which these laws are active
— or whether, when treating the question as to the im-
mediate cause of its existence, we see ourselves led to an
agency unJciiown to us. And that opinion is also in
conflict with all sound scientific reasoning : for the fact
that we do not have any knowledge of the immediate
cause of a phenomenon, is by no means a proof that this
immediate cause is the direct action of God who does
not use any secondary causes ; the phenomena may just
as well have still more material or immaterial secondary
causes, unknown to us. We will illustrate the eiTor,
referred to, by an example which will also reveal its
relationship to the other error of which we shall have to
speak immediately. It is certainly no evidence of an
especially intensive piety, if we build the conviction that
God is the Creator of man, among other things, on the
obscurity in which for us the origin of mankind is
wrapped. For from this obscurity no other conclusion
can be drawn than increased proofs of the limitation
of our knowledge ; that piety which traces those phe-
nomena whose natural causes we know, just as decidedly
to the causality of God, is much more — ^we shall not sa}',
intensive, but correctly guided — than that piety whicli
traces back those whose natural causes are hidden to us.
And, on the other hand, it is also no evidence of especial
religious coolness or indifference, when we pursue with
interest and the desire of success the attempts at bring-
ing light into the history of the origin of mankind. He
who does the latter can, according to his religious or

266 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

irreligious standpoint, just as easily connect his interest
with the hope of an enrichment of his knowledge of the
ways and works of God, as with the hope of a confirma-
tion in his atheistic view of the world. The reverence
with which we stand before the action of Grod in those
works whose existence is in a higher degree a mystery
to us than the existence of others (for in reality every-
thing is a mystery to us), is perhaps a little differently
modified from the reverence with which we stand before
the action of God in those of his works in the mode of
whose origin we are permitted to get a deeper glance ;
but each is reverence, and we can get from both nutri-
ment for our religious nature.

Those who favor the second error — namely, that the
idea of creation excludes the idea of secondary causes —
overlook the facts that the idea of the creation of the
universe is essentially different from the idea of the
creation of the single elements of the universe, as, for
instance, of the earth, of the organisms, of man ; that
the idea of a creation without secondary causes can only
be applied to the origin of the universe in its elements,
forces, and laws, and that the first origin of the single
elements in the world — as of the single planets, organ-
isms, man — not only admits the action of secondary
causes, but even requires and presupposes the action of
conditions. For all single species of beings which have
originated within the already existing world, have also
^ptain elements, even the whole basis and condition of
their existence, in common with that which was already
before in existence ; the planet has its elements in com-
mon with the elements of other planets, the organic has
the same material substances as the inorganic, man has

V

<-.-^:r

^y*. : 'I^^-x'A "'*^-.^- '-:■' ^^— ^-»— -^ — * _

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 257

the elements and the organization of his body as well as
a great part, of his psychical activity in common with
animals. Nothing urges us to suppose — and the analogy
of all that we know even forbids us to suppose — that
with the appearance of a new species of beings, the
same matter and the same quality of matter which the
last appearance has in common with the already existing,
has each time been called anew iqto existence out of
nothing. Only that which in the new species is really
new, comes into existence anew with its first appearance.
But we do not even know whether the proximate cause
of this new does really come into existence for the first
time, or whether it was not before in existence in a real,
perhaps latent, condition, and is now set free for the first
time. In the one case as in the other, we shall call the
new, which comes into existence, a new creation. And
if man thinks that the new only deserves the name of
creation, when it occurs suddenly and at once, where
before only other things were present, like a deus ex
machina^ certainly such an opinion is only a childlike
conception, which becomes childish as soon as we scien-
tifically reason about the process. It cannot be doubtful
that religious minds which are not accustomed to scien-
tific reasoning, have such a conception ; whether theolo-
gians also favor it, we do not know, although it is pos-
sible. Certainly those scientists who intend to attack
the faith in a living Creator and Lord of the world,
take it as the wholly natural, even as the only possible,
conception of a Creator and his creation ; and of course
it is to them a great and cheap pleasure to become victori-
ous knights in such a puppet-show view of the conception

of creation. But the source whence Christians derive their
17

25S THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

religious knowledge tells them precisely the contrary.
The Holy Scripture, it is true, sees in the entire universe
a work of God. But where it describes the creation of
the single elements of the world, it describes at the
same time their creation as the product of natural
causes, brought about by natural conditions. The reader
may see, for instance, the words: "And God said, Let
the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, etc.
And the earth hrought forth grass and herb," etc. "And
<jod said, Let th^ earth bring forth the living creature.'^'^
EVen the creation of man is thus related: "And the
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.**'
Certainly the forming presupposes a matter out of
which man is formed. And, on the other hand, where
the Bible speaks of single beings in the kingdoms long
before created and perfected, of the individual man who
is originated by generation and birth, of single plants and
animals — in general, of single processes and phenomena
in the world long before perfected, of wind and waves,
of rain and flames, which altogether have their natural
causes of origin — it speA.ks of them all precisely in the
same way as when describing their first creation as works
of God. The expressions "create, make, form, cause to
appear," are applied to the single individuals of the king-
doms long before created, precisely in the same way as
they are to the first origin of the first individuals of
these kingdoms."

Thus, by the full freedom which religioui interest
gives to scientific investigation, we are well prepared to
treat with entire impartiality the question as to the posi-
tion of each of the Darwinian theories in reference to
theism.

» J"

• - .-z '.«

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 259

2. The Descent Theory and Theism.

In the first part of our investigation, we found that
the idea of the origin of the species, especially of the
higher organized species, through descent from the next
related lower ones, has a high degree of probability,
although it is still not proven in a strictly scientific
sense, and although especially the supposition of an
often-separated primitive generation of single types is
not excluded by that idea, and we can hardly suppose
that the main types of the animal kingdom are devel-
• oped out of one anotiier. Now we are far from asking
of religion to decide for itself in favor of the one or the
other mode of conception, or to place its influence in the
one or the other balance-scale of scientific investigations.
It leaves the answering of these questions exclusively to
natural science, knowing beforehand that it will be able
to come to an understanding with the one as well as with
the other result of its investigations. But we confess
frankly that it is incomparably easier for us to bring the
origin of the higher groups of organisms in accord with
a theistic and teleological view of the world through
descent than the origin of each single species of organ-
isms through a primitive generation ; and we reach this
result especially by the attempt at teleologically perceiv-
ing the palaeontological remains of organic life on earth.
Theism and teleology see in the origin of things a striv-
ing towards a goal, a rising from the lower to the higher,
a development — it is true a development really taken only
in the ideal sense of an ideal connection, of a plan ; or,
,as K. E. V. Baer, in 1834, in his lecture on the most
common law of nature in all development, expresses

■'.;;■ "'

260 - THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

himself, of a progressive victory of mind over matter.
Such a plan and its realization we can much more easily
conceive when, in the past genera which geological form-
ations show us, a genealogical connection takes place
between the preceding species and the now living species,
than when each species perished and beside or after it the
newly appearing species always originated out of the
inorganic through primitive generation. In the first
case, we see in the preceding a real preparation for the
following, and also easily perceive the apparent waste of
enormous periods of time for the successive processes
of creation. In the second case, the coming and going
of genera in' innumerable thousands of years, without
any exterior connection, becomes an incomprehensible
problem, and the striving towards an end according to a
regular plan, which we observe in the development of
the organic kingdorris on earth, disappears completely in
metaphysical darkness.

Precisely because so many advocates of a theistic
view of the world have thought that for the sake of the
theistic idea of creation they were obliged to suppose a
primitive origin of all the organic species, and because^
nevertheless, the fact is patent that in the course of the
prehistoric thousands of years myriads of species came
and perished, not to return again, they became liable to
the reproach on the part of the adversaries of theism,
that the Creator, as they supposed him, makes unsuccess-
ful attempts, which he has to throw away, as the potter
a defective vessel, until he finally succeeds in making
something durable and useful; and this objection was
ahd is still made, not only to these superficial theists and
their unhappily-selected and iidefensible position, but to

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 261

»

the whole view of the world of theism itself and to the
faith in God and the Creator in general.

For all these reasons, we can from the religious point
of view but welcome the idea of a descent of species.
Philologists have, if we are correctly informed, the
canon that as a rule the more difficult text is the more
correct one ; but we doubt whether those should adopt
this canon who try to read in the book of nature,
whether with the eye of science or with that of religion
— unless the faculty of reasoning is given to us in order
to conceal the truth.

But, we have also to look for a manner of reconcil-
ing theism with all the diflTerent possibilities under which
a descent is at all reasonable and conceivable. One of
these possibilities is that of an entirely successive devel-
opment of species out of one another by imperceptibly
small transitions; and of this we shall soon speak.
Another is the possibility of a descent by leaps,
through a metamorphosis of germs or a heterogenetic
generation. The real causes of such a heterogenetic
generation, if it took place at all, have not yet been
found ; therefore we have to treat only of the abstract
possibilities of its conceivableness. There are two such
possibilities.

The birth of a new species took place in one of two
ways : Either to those materials "and forces which formed
the germ of the new species, were added entirely new
metaphysical agencies which did not exist before, and
only the basis and the frame within which the new
appeared, or that which the new species has in common
with the old mother-species had the cause of its existience
in the preceding. Likewise even the original productions

.:.:^

262 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

of man are always composed of two factors — of the
given pre-suppositions and conditions, and of the new
which on their basis and within their frame comes into
existence- Otherwise the causes of the new which was
to originate already lay in all former stages, but were
still latent and still hindered in their activity, and only
at the time of the birth the new impulse came which set
them free for their activity. This new impulse may very
well belong to the causal connection of the universe, and
be caused by something analogous to natural selection.

In the first case, which in it? application to the origin
of man is adopted by A. R. Wallace and Karl Snell, the
reconciliation between descent and theism has not the
least difficulty ; for if the agency which in the new-
appearing species produces that which is specifically new
in it, came only into existence with the first formation of
the germs of the new species in the mother-species, this
new certainly cannot have its origin anywhere else than
in the supermundane prima causa in the Creator and
Lord of the world.

In the second case also, theism is in no way threat-
ened. For if we have to refer the cause of a new
phenomenon in the world so far back as even to the
beginning and the first elements of all things, we never-
theless have to arrive at last at the cause of all causes ;
and this is the living God, the Creator and Lord of the
world. Thus the new form of existence would anyhow
have the cause, of its existence in God ; and the value,
the importance, and the substance of its existence,
would only commence from where it really made its
appearance, and not from where its still latent causes
existed. As little as we attribute to the just fecundated

theJ darwinian thboribs and'theism. 263

egg of man the value of man, although we know that
under the right conditions the full man is to be de-
veloped out of it, just so little in accordance with that
view would the differences of value within the created
world be dissolved in a mass of atoms or potencies of a
similar value. Neither should we have to fear that from
such a theory cold deism would be substituted for our
theism, full of life. For as certainly as theism does not
exclude, but includes, all that is relative truth in deism,
so certainly the supposition that the Creator had laid the
latent causes of all following creatures in the first germs
of the created, would also not exclude the idea of a
constant and omnipotent presence of the Creator in the
world. Undoubtedly it belongs to our most elementary
conceptions of God, that we have to conceive his lofty
position above time, not as an abstract distance from
finite development, but as an absolute domination
over it ; so that for God himself, who creates time and
developments in time, there is no dependence on the
temporal succession of created things, and it is quite the
same to him whether he instantly calls a creature into
existence, or whether he prepares it in k short space of
time, or years, or in millions of years. In this idea we
also find the only possible and simple solution of the
before-mentioned problem of a timeless time which Fr.
Vischer wishes to propose to philosophy.

§ 3. The £J volution Theory and Theism,

In speaking of an evolution theory, in distinction
from the descent theory, we mean, as is evident from
the first part of our work, that way and mode of con-

^^Mlll^^^^:::^,^

264: THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

stinicting the doctrine of the descent of species which
permit this descent to take place, not by the leaps of a
metamorphosis of germs, but by transitions so imper-
ceptably small that the difference of two generations
which lie in the same line of descent, is never greater
than those differences which always take place between

.parents and children of the same species — transitions
so gradual that only the continuation of these individual
changes in a single direction produces an increase and,
finally and gradually, the new species. The treatment
of the question as to what position this evolution theory
takes regarding theism, is even more simple than

- answering the question as to the position of the descent
idea in reference to theism.

For now we have no longer to discuss the different
possibilities of a development, as heretofore we have
discussed those of a descent, but only the idea of a
gradual development or of an evolution in general. Of
such possibilities, it is true, we find several. In the
first pla<)e, we can look for the inciting principle of the
development of species either in the interior of organ-
isms, or we can see it approaching the latter from with-
out. The only scientific system which has made any
attempt at mentioning and elaborating the inciting
principle of development is that of Darwin ; a system
that chooses the second of the alternatives just stated
and sees the essential principle that makes the transmis-
sion of individuals a progress beyond one species,
approaching the individuals from without. But while
we shall have to treat of this specific Darwinian theory
—the selection theory — still more in detail in the follow-
ing section, we shall also there have to point out every-

Y^^S:/

m

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 265

thing that theism has to say in reference to a principle
of development which approaches the organisms from
without. Another^ possible explanation of the origin of
species through developeraent is to be found in the fact
that we look for the inciting principle of development
in the interior of organisms. This is done, so far as we
know, by all those scientists who, although inclined to
an evolution theory, are adversaries of the selection
theory ; but none of them claim to have found the
inciting agencies of development. Thus, as in the
preceding section, we are again referred only to the
wholly abstract possibility of conceiving these inciting
ao^encies either as cominoj into existence anew in the
organism with each smallest individual modification
which leads to a development of the species, or as being
before present in the organisms, but still latent, and
only coming into activity when they are set free. But
the question whether theism could accept the one or the
other possibility had to be treated of in the preceding
section, arid was there answered in the affirmative.

Thus it only remains to treat in general of the ques-
tion as to the reconcilableness of the idea of the origin
of species through evolution, through gradual develop-
ment, in general with a theistic view of the world.

In the first place, we wish to render evident the fact
which is so often overlooked by the friends of monism and
still more by theistic adversaries of the idea of evolution,
that the idea of a development of species, and also of man,
does not offer to theistic reasoning any new or any other
difficulties than those which have been long present, and
which had found their solution in the religious conscious-
ness long before any idea of evolution disturbed the

•^■nf t,

t^i^^3:^r.^:Y>.

r.

•'■■^■•^•Zm". *■!* * ~ ■» ' _ir. ^ ,.^._'" . ^

266 THE THEORIES OF DARW^ff.

mind. It is true, the question as to the origin of man-
hind is, to speak in the language of natural history, a
still unsolved problern ; and the supposition of its grad-
ual development out of the animal kingdom is still an
hypothesis — one of all those attempts at solving this
problem which still wait for confirmation or refutation.
But there is another quite analogous question whose
position has long ceased to be a mere problem, and whose
solution is no longer a mere hypothesis ; namely, the
question as to the origin of the perfect human or any
other organic individAud, To speak again in the language
of natural history, this origin is no longer a problem —
that is, without regard to the obscurity in which the
existence and origin of every creature, as to its last
causes, is always and will always be veiled for us. We
know that the human, and, in general, every organic
individual, becomes that which it is through development.
It begins the course of its being with the existence of a
single cell, the egg, and goes through all stages of this
development J3y wholly gradual and imperceptible trans-
itions, so that the precise moment cannot exactly be
fixed when any organ, any physical or psychical function,
comes into existence, until perfect man is developed.
Man has this mode of coming into existence in common
with all organized beings, down to the lowest organisms
which stand above the value and rank of a single cell. At
this place, and with the design of our present discussion
in view, we ought not to render the importance of this
fact obscure by a teleological comparison of the different
eggs and germs with one another. If we look upon that
which is to dome out of the germs, and which certainly
is prepared and present in the first vital functions of the

• ■ ■■,■••■*-•■■

■* *-*•' V- •■ -• - ' -< ■■..•■' r . "- ii 11 1' T -.J'-..-^*^* i ll • ■■■ ■

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 267

germ, although we are not able to observe, prove, and
estimate it by means of the microscope and the retort,
then of course the difference in the value of the germs
must be immense ; and from this point of view we cer-
tainly look upon the germ of man differently than upon
the germ of an oyster. But here the question is not as
to the differences of value of organisms : no scientist
who remains within the limits of his realm, will ever
deny them ; but we treat of the question whether such
valuable objects come into existence suddenly or gradu-
ally — whether it is possible, or eveti a fact which repeats
itself before our eyes, that a form of being of higher
value comes forth from a form of being of a lower value
in gradual development. And here it is an undisputed
fact that all qualities of man, the physical as well as the
spiritual, come into existence in such a gradual develop-
ment that not in a single one of them can be fixed any
moment of which it may be said : on the other side of
this moment it did not exist, but on this side it did exist.
All differentiations of his body, from the first differen-
tiation of the egg-cell into a complexity of cells up to
the last formation of his organs, take place in the same
gliding development. All his psychical and spiritual
functions and forces come into existence in this form of
gradual development. Where, in the development of
the human individual, is the moment in which conscious-
ness, language, self -consciousness, memory, will, the
perception of God, moral responsibility, the perception
of the idea and the ideal, or whatever else we may men-
tion, came into existence ? Nowhere ; all this, and all
the rest, is developed in a gradual process. The only
marked time in this development is the time of birth :

«/ '.-M

268 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

it bnngs a great change into physical life, and is perhaps
the beginning-epoch of the spiritual development of man.
But even the birth is not absolutely bound to a certain
time ; the child may be born too early, by weeks or
even months, and its development nevertheless takes
place ; and even after birth, how slowly and gradually
spiritual development begins and continues !

With this gradual process of individual development
which we have long known, we have never found any
difficulty in bringing two things into harmony. First,
we always judged the value of the single qualities of
man only in the proportion in which they were really
presept and came into existence, and in such a way that
we entirely followed the flowing development of the
individual. Therefore we looked upon the suckling, for
instance, not at all as a morally responsible individual ;
upon the child of two years as more responsible, but to
a far less degree than the child of school-age, and the
.latter again to a less degree than the man ; and thus we
have been long accustomed to reason, when looking
upon all single qualities of man. Second, we did not find
any difficulty in bringing into perfect harmony the idea
of a gradual process of individual development and of
the dependence of the latter on a complex totality of
natural causes : with the idea of the absolute dependence
on God, the Creator, of that which arose through devel-
opment. Every religiously reasoning man has always
looked upon himself as the child of his parents, grad-
ually developed under, the activity of complex natural
causes, as well as the creature of God, that owes the
existence of all its forces and parts of body and soul to
God. Should it then, be so difficult, or is it only some-

.ir*; Ui-*'^

^ ..*-^*^

— f/ f -^ -f- -.••■, - • .* -^ •'--- — ■• ■ * ~ — — '

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 269

thing new, to bring into harmony, when looking upon
the entire species and genus, that which we were long ago
able to bring into harmony when looking upon the indi-
vidual — it being presupposed that the investigation leads
us to a development of the entire species and genus
similar to that of the individual development ? Or have
we here again to ask, as in § 1 : is it more religious to
make no attempt at removing the veil which covers the
natural process of the origin of mankind, than to make
it? It is true, the not knowing anything can, under
certain circumstances, create and increase the sensation
of reverence for the depth of divine power and wisdom ;
but a perception of the ways of God is also certainly
able to create the same. On that account, we need not
at all fear that by such an attempt and its eventual
success we might get into the shallows of superficiality,
to which nothing seems any longer to be hidden, only
because it has no presentiment of the depths which are
to be sounded. There will always remain enough of the
mysterious and the uninvestigated, and each new step
forward will only lead to new views, to new secrets, to
new wonders.

But does not a development, like that which we
here for the moment assume hypothetically, efface and
destroy the specific value of man and mankind from still
another side ? Would not a beginning of mankind be
really lost, in case that theory of evolution should gain
authority? and would not there still lie between that
which is decidedly called animal world and that which
is decidedly called mankind an innumerable series of
generations of beings which were neither animal nor
man ? We do not believe it. What makes man 7)iany

• * • rf

270 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

we can exactly point out: it is self-consciousness and
moral self-determination. Now, in case development
took place in the above sense, it may have passed ever so
gradually ; the epochs of preparation between that which
we know as highest animal development and that which
constitutes the substance of man, may have stretched
over ever so many generations, and, if the friends of
evolution desire it, we say over ever so many thousands
of generations; yet that which makes man rnmh — self-
consciousness and moral self-determination — must have
always come into actual reality in individuals. Those
individuals in. which self-consdousness came into exis-
tence and activity, for the first time, and with it the
entire possibility of the world of ideas — the conscious-
ness of moral responsibility, and with it also the entire
dignity of-jnoral self-determination — were the first men.
The individuals which preceded the latter may have been
ever so interesting and promising as objects of observa-
tion, if we imagine ourselves spectators of these once
supposed processes ; yet, they were not men.

§ 4. TTie Selection Theory and Themn,

The last scientific theory whose position in reference
to theism we have to discuss, is the selection theory.

We have found but little reason for sympathizing
with this theory. But since we believed that we were
obliged to suspect it, not for religious but for scientific
reasons, so the completeness of our investigation requires
us to assume hypothetically that the selection principle
really manifests itself as the only and exclusive principle
of the origin of species, and to ask now what position it
would in such a case take in reference to theism.

THE DARWINIAN THEOBIES AND THEISM. 271

The only answer we are able to give is decidedly fav-
orable to theism.

It is true, development would in such a case ap-
proach the organisms merely from without For the
principle lying within the organisms, which would
then be the indispensable condition of all development,
would be first the principle in itself, wholly without plan
or end, of individual variability; second, the principle of
inheritance which for itself and without that first princi-
ple is indeed no principle of development, but the con-
trary. The causes from which the single individuals vary
in such or such a way, would then be the outer conditions
of life and adaptation to them: i.^., something coming
from without. And the causes from which one individual,
varying in such or such a way, is preserved in the strug-
gle for existence, and another, varying differently, per-
ishes, would be approaching the individuals also from
without; hence they are a larger or smaller useful
variation for the existence of the individual.

Now if, through these influencing causes of develop-
ment, approaching the most simple organisms from
without, a rising line of higher and higher organized
beings comes finally into existence (a line in which sen-
sation and consciousness, finally self-consciousness and
free-will, appear) we again reach the teleological dilem-
ma : all this has either happened by chance, or it has not.
No man who claims to treat this question earnestly and
in a manner worthy of respect, will assert that it hap-
pened by chance, but by necessity. But^with this word
the materialist only hides or avoids the necessity of
supposing a plan and end in place of chance, as we have
convinced oui*selves in Part I, Book II, Chap. 11, § 1.

272 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

The only exception in this case is, that the bearer mid
agent of this plan would not be the single organism
(ais is easily possible when we accept a descent theory
which is more independent from the selection theory),
but the collection of all forces and conditions, acting
upon the organism from without. . And for the question,
whence this plan and its realization comes, we had again
but the one answer: from a highest intelligence and
omnipotence, from the personal God of theism. The
locus of creation and the locus of providence would now,
as ever, retain their value in the theological system, with
the sole exception that most of that which so far belong-
ed to the Z(9C2W of creation would now belong, in a higher
degree than in the hitherto naturo-historical view, to the
locics of providence and of the government of the world.
When looked upon from the theocentric point of view,
the new forms which we had to suppose as called into
existence only by selection, would remain products of
divine creation: the "God said, and it was so," would
retain its undiminished importance ; but looked upon
from the cosmic point of view, they would present
themselves as products of the divine providence and
government of the world, still more exclusively than in
every principal of explanation which finds the causes of
development in the organisms themselves or in an imma-
terial cause acting upon the organisms from within. The
first as well as the second point of view is in full harmony
with the religious view of things.

We do not conceal that on the ground of all other
analogies we sympathize more with those who look for
the determining influences of the origin of new species
rather within than without nature, and who, while look-

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 273

iug at that which the higher species have in common
with the lower, do not forget or neglect the new, the
original, which they possess. But we are indeed neither
obliged nor entitled, in the name of religion, to take
beforehand in the realm of scientific investigation the
side of the one or the other direction of investigation,
or even of the one or the other result of investigation,
befoi'e it is arrived at Let us unreservedly allow
scientists free investigation in their realm, so long as
they do not meddle with ethical or religious principles,
and quietly await their results. These results, when
once reached, may correspond ever so closely with our
present view and our speculative expectations, or in
both relations be ever so surprising and new; the one
case as well as the other has already happened: at any
rate they will not affect our religious principles, but
only enrich our perception of the way and manner of
divine activity in the world, and thereby give new food
and refreshment to our religious life.

Jg. The Dabwinistic Philosophemes in Their PosrriON Rs-

GABDiNO Theism.

§ 5. The NcUuro^Philosophic Supplements of Darwinism

and Theism.

We still have to discuss the position of theism in
reference to the philosophic problems to which a Dar-
winistic view of nature sees itself led, and in the first
place its position in reference to the naturo-philosophic
theories with which the descent idea tries to complete
itself.

In the first part of our book, we have found that not

18

^ISS^rLc:^"" "^'" 3^^--;>

274

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

a single one of the naturo-philosophic problems before
which the descent idea places us, is really solved :
neither the origin of self-consciousness and of moral
self-determination, nor the origin of consciousness and
of sensation, nor the origin of life; and even the theory
of atoms, although it is quite important and indispen-
sable for the natural philosopher and chemist according
to the present state of his knowledge and investigation,
has not yet been able to divest itself of its hypothetical
character. Religion might, therefore, refuse to define
its position in reference to theories which are still of a
quite problematic and hypothetical nature. But by
giving such a refusal, religion would not act in its own
interest. The reproach is often made that it has an
open or hidden aversion to the freedom of scientific in-
vestigation — a reproach which, it is true, is often enough
provoked by its own advocates ; often the assertion is
made by advocates of free investigation, that free
science has led, or can lead at any moment, to results
which shake or even destroy theism and with it the
objective and scientifically established truth' of a
religious view of the world. The consequence of this
assertion is exactly, as before-mentioned, that minds
whose religious possession is to them an inviolable
sanctuary, and who lack time and occasion, inclination
and ability, to examine scientifically these asserted
results of science, really suspect free science and con-
test the right of its existence. Another consequence of
this state of war between religion and science is the fact
that so many minds in both camps fall into a servile
dependence upon battle-cries : they confound freedom
of investigation with license; science with apathy or

' •. j*----

^ •. ■•

t -•

~_,:::-^::2&2:i^^j^L

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 275

hostility to faith; faith with lack of scientific perception,
blind unreasoning belief, etc. Such a state of afiairs
does not, indeed, serve the interests of peace and truth;
only a correct treatment of philosophy as well as of re-
ligion can lead to them.

Such a way of peace and truth from the side of
religion and its scientific treatment is entered upon,
when religion sets itself right, not only with all real, but
also with all conceivable^ possible results of the other '
sciences, not only of the exact, but also of the philo-
sophic sciences. If it finds, in such an investigation,
that such conceivable results are reconcilable with the
theistic view of the world which is the basis of religion,
it has already shown its relationship to the freedom of
investigation. But if it finds anyivhere a possible
result which is in conflict with its theistic view of the
world, it is obliged to examine the mutual grounds of
dissent, as to the degree of their truth and their power
of demonstration ; and in case its own position is the
stronger, better founded, and more convincing, to prove
this fact, li it does this, it again acts according to the
principle of free investigation— with the single differ-
ence that in such a case it not only makes this allowance
to the opponent, but also uses this principle for itself in
its own realm and especially in the border land between
itself and its opponent ; but at the same time it shows
in this case (what, indeed, so many are inclined to deny),
that religion also has its icience, and that theology
iteelf is this science, and has the same rights as the
sciences which are built up in the realm of material
things or of abstract reasoning.

We therefore assume hypothetically, that the origin

276 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

of self-consciousness and of moral self-determination is
fully explained by consciousness ; the origin of con-
sciousness and sensation by that which has no sensation ;
the origin of the living and organic by the lifeless and
inorganic ; and that atomism also is scientifically estab-
lished and proven : how, then, would such a theory of
the world and theism stand in respect to each other? By
this assumption, we think we should simply stand again
at the point, the basis of which we had to discuss in Part
I, Book II, Chap. 11, § 1, when treating of teleology. We
should always see something new, something harmoni-
ously arranged: a process of objects of value, continually
rising higher and higher, coming forth out of one another
in direct causal connection ; and should have a choice of
one of two ways of ex|ilaining this process. We should
either have to be satisfied with this final causal connection,
and perceive in this process itself its highest and last
cause, in doing which we should be obliged again to
deny order and plan in this process, to reject the cate-
gory of lower and higher and the acknowledgment of a,
striving towards an end in these developments, and after
having climbed to that Faust-height of investigation and
knowledge, to throw ourselves in spiritual suicide back
into the night and barbarism of chaos, or of a rigid
mechanism to which all development, all life, all spirit-
ual and ethical tasks, are but appearance; or we should,
have to treat the idea of development seriously and
recognize a plan and a striving towards an end in this
world-process, and should then find ourselves referred to
a higher intelligence and a creative will as the highest and
last cause which appoints the end and conditions of this
process. This would be the case still more, as we actually

. n

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEI8M. 277

see that at present the single beings whien stand on a
lower stage of existence no longer produce beings of a
higher stage, although, according^ to that theory whose
correctness we now assume hypothetically, the elements
and factors for the production of those higher forms of
existence are fully present in the lower ones. Inorganic
matter no longer produces organisms; the lower species
of plants or animals no longer develop higher ones ;
the animal no longer becomes man; and yet there
were periods, lying widely apart, in which, according to
that theory, such things took place. What else set free
those active causes, at the right time and in the right
place? What else closed again at the precise place and
moment the, valves of the proceeding development, and
brought to rest again the inciting force of the rising
development?— what else but the highest end-appointing
intelligence and omnipotence?

Even the inherent qualities of the elements, and the
products of all the higher forms of existence which in
the future shall arise out of them, the whole striving
toward an end of the processes in the world, would
present itself to us much more vividly than now, where
we are still in the dark as to all these questions. We
should see in atoms the real inherent qualities of all
things and processes which are to be developed out of
them ; in the inorganic the real inherent qualities for the
organic and living ; in that which has no consciousness
and sensation the real inherent qualities for self-con-
sciousness. Instead of being now obliged to recur to
the ideal and metaphysical, we should see the threads of
the world's plan uncovered befoi-e us in empirical reality;
and far from bearing with it an impoverishment of our

1^.

^ *^T ■ ' r -- ;•» . \ , .. • i

278 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

consciousDess of God, all this would bring us only an
immense enrichment of its contents ; for with such an
enlargement of our knowledge, we should only be per-
mitted to take glances into the way and manner of
divine creation and action — glances of a depth which
at present we are far from being permitted to take.

Even very concrete parts of a theistic view of the
world, as they present themselves to us — e^ff.^ in the
Holy Scripture, from its most developed points of view —
would now find only richer illustrations than heretofore.
St. Paul, for instance, in Rom. viii, speaks of the earnest
expectation of the creature that waiteth for the mani-
festation of the sons of God. As to the present state
of our knowledge of nature, those who adopt this view
are only entitled to see in the sensation of pain of the
animal world a sensation of this longing, unconscious
of the end ; but as to all soulless and lifeless beings and
elements in the world, they can see in these words of a
sighing and longing creation only a strong figurative
expression used because of its suitableness to denote
sufiering of the animal world, as well as of men, — for
the destination of the world to another and higher exis-
tence in which the law of perishableness and suffering
no longer governs. On the other hand, if, as we assume
hypothetically, all higher forms of existence in the world
could be explained out of the preceding lower ones, and
if the before-mentioned theorem of a sensation of atoms
should form a needed and correct link in that chain of
explanation, those words of sighing and longing would
have to be literally taken in a still more comprehensive
sense than now and in their directly literal meaning

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 279

would refer not only to the animal world but indeed to
everything in the world.

Therefore, so long as attempts at explaining the
different forms of existence in the world wholly from
one another keep within their own limits, and do not of
themselves undermine theism; and so lono^ as there are
men who on the one hand favor such a mode of explan-
ation and on the other hand still adhere firmly to a faith
in God, whether it be the deeper theism or the more
shallow and supei*ficial deism — so long religion has no
reason for opposing those attempts at explanation. And
there are such men ; we need only to mention Huxley,
whose position in reference to religion we have already
discussed; or Oskar Peschel, who, in his ''Volker-
kunde " (" Ethnology "), says: " It is not quite clear how
pious minds can be disturbed by this theory ; for crea-
tion obtains more dignity and importance if it has in
itself the power of renewal and development of the
perfect." Even Herbert Spencer, with his idea of the
imperceptibility of the super-personal, of the final cause
of all things, is still a living proof of the fact that man
can trace the mechanism of causality back to its last
consequences and, as Spencer does, even derive con-
sciousness and sensation from that which is without sen-
sation, and yet not necessarily proceed so far as negation
of a living God, even if he persists in his refusal to per-
ceive in general the ultimate cause of things.

To meet those attempts, religion would have to take
only two precautionary measures on two closely related
points ; and in doing this it would indeed make use
of that before-mentioned right to defend freedom of

280 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

investigation both in its own realm and in the border-
territory.

' One precaution would consist in the requirement of
the acknowledgment that even in that purely immanent
mode of explanation the idea of value is fixed^ but that
the value of the new appears only when the new itself
really comes into existence; that we therefore do not
call, e,g.^ the inorganic living^ because according to that
mode of explanation life develops itself out of it; and
that we do not ascribe to the animal the value of man,
because according to that mode of explanation it also
includes the causes of the development of man. Such a
discrimination of ideas is indeed a scientific postulate^ as
we have had occasion to show at many points of our
investigation; and we also complied with this require-
ment long ago in that realm of knowledge which is
related to these questions as to the origin of things, but
is more accessible and open to us, namely, in the realm
of the development of the individual. We have spoken
of this at length in § 3. But in the interest of religion
also we have to request that the differences of value oi
things be retained, even when man thinks he is able to
explain their origin merely out of one another. For
without this, all things would finally merge simply into
existences of like value; man would stand in no other
relation to God than would any other creature, irrational
or lifeless; and the quintessence of religious life — the
relation of mutual personal love between God and man,
the certainty of being a child of God — would be illusory
when there should no longer be a difference of value
between man and animal, animal and plant, plant and
stone.

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 281

Many a reader thinks, perhaps, that with this pre-
caution we make a restriction which is wholly a matter
of course, and that nobody would think of denying
these differences of value. Hackel, in his " Anthropo-
geny," repeatedly reproaches man with the "arrogant
anthropocentric imagination " which leads him to look
upon himself as the aim of earthly life and the centre
of earthly nature ; this, he says, is nothing but vanity
and haughtiness. Several writers in the "Ausland"
faithfully second him in this debasement of the value of
man. Its editor (" Ausland," 1874, No. 48, p. 957), for
instance, reproaches Lud^ig Noire, although he other-
wise sympathizes with him, that in his book "Die Welt
als Entwicklung des Gelstes" ("The World as Devel-
opment of Mind"), Leipaig, Veit & Co., 1874, he still
takes this anthropocentric standpoint and can say: "The
anthropocentric view recognizes in man's mind the
highest bloom of matter, which has attained to the
possession of a soul." This, Hackel says, is nothing
else but the former conception, not yet overcome, that
man is the crown of creation. This pleasure in debas-
ing the value of man is also a characteristic sign of the
times. K. E. von Baer is right, when, in his "Studies"
(page 463), he says: " In our daj's, men like to ridicule
as arrogant the looking upon man as the end of the
history of earth. But it is certainly not man's
merit that he has the most highly developed organic
form. He also must not overlook the fact that with this
his task of developing more and more his spiritual

gifts has only begun Is it not more worthy of

man to think highly of himself and his destination,
than, fixing his attention only upon the low. to acknow-

282 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

ledge only the animalic basis in himself? I am sony
to say that the new doctrine is very much tainted
in this direction of striving after the low. I should
rather prefer to be haughty than base, and I well
recollect the expression of Kant, 'Man cannot think
highly enough of man.' By this expression the pro-
found thinker especially meant that mankind has to set
itself great tasks. But the modem views are more a
palliation of all animal emotions in man.''

The other precautionary measure referred to would
be, that the realm of mind^ and especially the ethical
realvi^ is not dissolved into a mxituTal meclmnism. This
precaution is also connected with the first one, the
latter being its condition ; for only where it is acknow-
ledged that causes, so long as they are still latent, do not
fall under the same category of value as their eflfects, when
these are once realized, it can also be acknowledged that
the realm of mind and morality, although it has grown
out of the ground of the mechanism of nature, can still
have brought something new and higher into the world.
Besides, this precaution is also a postulate of anthropo-
logic science. For spiritual and ethical facts have at
least the same truth and reality as the material, and a
still higher value, and can therefore not permit any
injury to their full recognition. But religion also must
require , this acknowledgment. For if the specific
actmity of mind in man is endangered, we also lose his
specific vahce^ and thus get into the before-mentioned
dilemma ; and if the moral responsibility of man is en-
dangered, the relation of man to God loses its ethical
character. Of the consequences in reference to morality,
we shall have to speak hereafter.

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 283

Moreover, religion does not require this acknowledg-
ment without a rich compensation. For if that naturo-
philosophic mode of explanation, whose correctness we
hypothetically assume in this present section, prove to be
right, and if the higher which comes anew into exist-
ence in the world, is to have the full cause of its origin
in the preceding lower, such an admission, in accordance
with the laws of logic, by which causa asquat effectum^ is
only possible when we either similarly, as above, inval-
idate all difference between higher and lower, all differ-
ence of value of creatures, and contest the possibility
that that which appears anew can also follow new laws
of existence and activity ; or when, in j;he highest cause
of all final causes in the world, we see the full abun-
dance of all those possibilities present as real cause,
which afterwards appear in succession in the world.
This highest cause, then, lodges in material things the
final causes of all which is to come, as still latent causes?
waiting to be set free ; and such a highest cause as the full-
ness of all that which is successively to be developed in the
world, is offered to science by religion itself in the idea
of a living God. We say expressly, that religion offers
this idea to science, and not that science creates this
idea ; for the acknowledgment of God, as we have before
had occasion to point out, is in the last instance not a
result of science, but an ethical action of mind, — although
from this acknowledgment the brightest light falls upon
science and the whole series of its conclusions, and
although science owes to precisely this idea of God the
highest points of view to which it sees itself led and
from which alone it is able to survey its entire realm.

284 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

§ 6. ElimincUion of the Idea of Design or its Acknowledge

ment and Theism,

In the whole preceding course of our investigation
as to the position of religion and theism regarding the
diflferent scientific and naturo-philosophic theories, theism
could quietly keep the position of a friendly and peace-
ful spectator. The degrees of our sympathy with the
theories which have successively passed before our eyes,
were on scientific grounds very unequal ; but on religious
grounds, and in the interest of a theistic view of the
world, we found ourselves nowhere induced to take
sides for or against a theory. But the position of religion
and theism becomes quite different in reference to the
assertion that the existence of ends and designs in
nature is refuted by the evolution theory or by any other
hypothetical or real results of science. With this asser-
tion, the existence of a living and personal God, of a
Creator and Lord of the world, is denied ; and every
religion which claims objective truth for its basis is
eliminated. It is true, man can under this supposition
still speak of a religion in the sense of subjective relig-
iousness ; but the life-nerve is also cut off from this sub-
jective religiousness. We have repeatedly had occasion
to prove this in our historical review, and also in the
section in which we pointed out the plan of our own
analysis.

But still, where we have had to represent this anti-
teleological view of the world, we have happily convinced
ourselves of the fact that an existence of ends and designs
in nature is not only reconcilable with the conformity to
law and the causal mechanism of its processes, but is

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 285

B,\so postulated by scientific contemplation of nature, as
soon as the latter observes that in these processes, acting
with lawful necessity, something in general is attained,
and, moreover, when out of them comes forth some-
thing so infinitely rich and beautifully arranged, such a
rising series of higher and higher developments, as the
world. On the other hand, combatting the striving
towards an end in nature leads to such scientific mon-
strosities, destroys so thoroughly the idea of God and
also all ideas of value in the world, even all spiritual and
etliical acquisitions of mankind, that we can explain the
origin of such a doctrine only by the determined purpose
of getting rid, at any cost, of the dependence on a living
God : again a proof of the fact that faith, or want of
faith, in its final causes, is not the product of reflecting
intelligence, but an ethical action of that centre of human
personality from which the spiritual process of life in
the individual comes forth — an ethical action of mind.

Herewith the position of theism in reference to the
elimination of the idea of design is also soon character-
ized : it is the pnsition of irreconcilable antagonism. In
rejecting the position of its opponent, theism perceives
that it is in harmony not only with every correctly under-
stood religious need, but equally so with every scientific
interest — with the interest of a correct knowledgre of
nature, as well as with the interest of those sciences
which have to take care of and try to understand the
spiritual and ethical endowments of mankind.

If we now turn our attention to the position of theism
in reference to the idea of design in general^ theism on its
part also gives an equally firm support to that intimate
connection, proven by natural science, between causality

286 THE THEORIES OF t)ARWIN..

and striving toward an end — between aetiology and tele-
ology, as they are called in the language of the philo-
sophical school. While a contemplation of nature per-
ceives in nature a mechanism governed by laws and
necessities, it finds results reached through this chain of
causality in which it must acknowledge ends toward
which the preceding has striven. Now, theism, on its
part, proceeds from the highest end-appointing cause of
things and processes, and finds that the reaching of these
ends postulates a mechanism of natural conformity to
law. In order to prove this, we certainly must take a
course which is prohibited by many as anthropomorph-
ism, i, ^., we must try to study the connection of ends
and designs, and the possibility of such a connection
where we are able to observe in general not only the
accomplishment of purposes, but also the forming of
purposes ; a-nd the only realm of this kind which we
know of, is the realm of human action. He who, merely
through fear of anthropomorphism, shrinks from this
only possible comparison, may consider that for those
who assume a highest end-appointing cause (and we, too,
proceed from this standpoint) man also, who forms his
designs and strives toward his ends, is a product of that
highest end-appointing cause ; and that, therefore, in the
human striving toward an end, a certain analogue of
the divine striving toward an end must occur. We
are, indeed, not obliged on this account to identify the
two, and to close our eyes against the immense difier-
ences which exist between them, and which, wholly of
themselves, intrude upon our observation. What we
mean by that analogy may thus be stated.

Man forms for himself designs and ends, and pursues

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THEISM. 287

and reaches them by using the objects and forces of
nature as means. He can do this only because the
forces in nature act from necessity, strictly conformable
to law. Because, and so far as man knows the action
of forces, conformable to law, and the inviolable neces-
sity of the connection between certain causes and their
effects, he can select and make use of such causes as
means, by virtue of which he reaches those effects as
desi^s intended by him. If he could not depend on
this conformity to law, on this causal connection taking
place according to simple necessities, he could not select,
make, and use, with certainty, any tool, from the club
with which he defends himself against his enemies or
tracks the shells of fruit, up to the finest instruments of
optics and chemistry, and even to the telegraph and
steam engine. The conformity to law, with which the
forces of nature act, far from being an impediment to
his appointing and reaching his ends is much more the
indispensable means by which he is enabled in general
to reach them. Now, if we thus find, in the only action
striving towards an end which we are able to observe to
the extent of the appointing of ends and the selection
of means — namely, man's end-appointing action — such a
strong dependence of finality on causality that the
reaching of ends is not possible at all unless the means
act of necessity conformably to law, then we are
certainly obliged to draw the conclusion that the highest
author of things has prepared the world so, that the
reaching of ends requires the action of means, and that
the category of finality and the category of causality
are mutually prepared for each other. For, according
to the theistic and teleological view of the world, the

288 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

laws of nature, acting with causality and necessity, are
certainly not laws which the Creator found in someway,
and with which he had to calculate as with factors given
to him from somewhere else, in order to make use of
them, so far as he was permitted, for the accomplish-
ment of his designs — ^this would be the way and manner
of human teleological action, and transferring it to
divine action would be an anthropomorphism which we
should have to reject On the contrary, these laws
themselves are the work of the teleological ly acting
Creator — he, indeed, will have given to them such a
quality that with them he is able to reach his ends as a
whole and in detail. The inviolability of the laws of
natui*^ also results from this idea. For means which
would have to be supplemented, sometimes set aside,
occasionally replaced by others, would be less perfect
than such means as by virtue of their quality are able
with certainty to serve the designs which are to be
reached by them. How theism can reconcile with this
view the indispensable idea of divine freedom, we shall
have occasion to show in Chap. II, § 4.

Among the writers who defend teleology, we
can mention two who, starting from the analogy of
human teleological action, have pointed out the idea that
teleology itself requires a necessity, conformable to law,
in the activity of the forces of nature. One of the two
is K. E. von Baer, in his oft-quoted essays on striving
towards end; and the other is the Duke of Argyll. At
a time when the assault against teleology had just begun,
this noble author perceived the whole importance and
weight of these attacks, and most energetically defended
teleology. The expression of the just-mentioned ideas,

THE DARWINIAN THEOBIE8 AND THEISM.

289

among others, forms one of the fundamentals of his
work, "The Reign of Law" (London, Strahan & Co.,
first edition published in 1866, and since then in fre-
quently repeated editions); a work which is well fitted
to instruct us, in the most intereisting manner, regarding
the present state of the related questions as they are
treated of in Great Britain.

19

<-'

«>_-
t*-'

J- X.

f'if'- ■-».»'

290 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

CHAPTER n.

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND POSITIVB

CHRISTIAJ^ITY.

§ 1. The Creation of the World.

Now that we have come to a clear understanding
of the position of the Darwinian theories in reference
to the basis of all religion and of all living religiousness^
to theism in general, it remains to be seen what position
those of the theories which are reconcilable with theism
take in reference to the positive Christian view of the
world.

We naturally omit all those objects and parts of
Christian dogmatics which have no points of contact,
or are very indirectly connected with the Darwinian
ideas, or which — as, <?.^., their position in reference to
the idea of God in general — have found their principal
illustration in our investigation just finished. We shall
nevertheless have now to take into consideration once
more, although from another side, some objects which
we have discussed in treating of the relation of the
Darwinian ideas to theism, on account of the specific
part which theism has in Christianit3^ This is especially
the case with those Christian facts which belong to the
first article of the Apostolic Creed, and immediately
also with the doctrine of the creation of the world.

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 291

At first sight it seems that the evolution theory and
Christianity are in no other place more sharply opposed
to each other than in that of the history of creation.
Darwinism claims for its theory immense periods of
time; and geology seems to furnish them according to
its demand. The Holy Scripture, on the other hand,
teaches a creation of the world in six days.

With the attempt to find the right way to end this
conflict, we enter upon that part of the border-land
between theology and natural science, which, among all
others, is most contested, and which has offered to the
most luxuriant fancy the widest field of action and the
one most profitably taken advantage of.

We confess at the outset that we sympathize with
those who try to keep the peculiar realms of religion
and natural science apart in such a way that a collision
between the two is impossible. We quietly leave the
investigation of the temporal succession in creation —
especially the investigation of all that belongs in the
finite causal connection of natural processes — to natural
science ; we also do not look to the source of our Chris-
tian religion, to the Holy Scripture, for a scientific man-
ual, least of all for the communication of a knowledge
of nature, supematurally manifested and claiming divine
authority, the acquisition of which is especially the task
of scientific labor. But we bestow just as decidedly
upon religion the specific task of showing man the way
to communion with God, especially the way of salvation ;
a task in which it can as little permit itself to be hindered
by natural science, as the latter in the pursuit of its
peculiar tasks can allow an objection from any source.
On the side of reUgion, the bond of unity which brings

292 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

into harmony the two activities of the human mind — the
religious and the investigating — in the realm of nature,
and, in general, in the whole realm of exact science,
consists in the fact that in all which exact science offers
to religion as the result of its investigatibn, the latter
perceives and shows the works and ways of Grod ; and
on the side of the exact sciences, the bond consists in the
fact that they bring within the reach of their scientific,
historical, literary, culturo - historical, and exegetical
investigations all that which in the religious realm
appears, or in the written word is fixed, as historical
fact. Religion, therefore, concedes to exact sciences the
full right of examining the biblical records as to all the
relations of their historical and literary connections ; it
even makes these investigations a quite essential and, at
present, very much favored branch of its own science of
theology. On the other hand, religion reserves just as
decidedly to itself the full right of drawing from them,
of maintaining, and of realizing, the whole full religious
basis and significance of those records.

We know very well that such a proposition is very
simple in principle, but much more difficult in practice.
For the quintessence of that which constitutes the basis
of the Christian religion — namely, the leading back of
mankind to communion with God by means of salvation
— is not only a philosopheme, a theoretical or mystic
doctrine, but difact : it comes into the world as a series
of divine facts ; it is interwoven by innumerable threads
into creation and the course of nature and history ; and,
as to this whole aspect of its appearance in the world of
phenomena, it falls under the cognition of the exact
sciences. But as soon as any given fact ei^cites the

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 293

interest of religion as well as that of exact science, col-
lisions are possible from both sides. Some advocates of
religion, through mistaken zeal for religious interests,
may think it necessary to assert and to represent as
indispensable to religion facts whose cognition as to real-
ity belongs only to exact science and which are contested
by exact science ; as, e. g,^ the creation of the world in
six literal days, or the creation of the single elements
of the world without the action of secondary causes.
And some advocates of exact science, from reasons of a
superficial analogy, may erroneously think it necessary
to dispute the reality of facts, otherwise well attested,
but wanting analogy, in which religion has a central
interest ; as, e. ^., the reality of the resurrection of Jesus
Christ, or the reality of his miracles. Or they may
unjustifiably try, from our experiences in this world, to
forbid glances which religion permits us to throw beyond
the present cx)urse of the world ; e, g.^ the eschatological
hope of Christians is often enough contested, or as the
laws of nature are called eternal in the absolute sense
of the word, although natural science is only led to a
recognition of the duration of the same, which is con-
gruent with the circumstances and duration of this
present course of the world.

We are perfectly aware of all these possibilities of a
collision, and of all the difiiculties of their prevention
and reconciliation ; but we nevertheless know of no
other way for their avoidance than that simple principle
of agreement which, on account of its simplicity and
clearness, seems to us to be perfectly able to maintain
the peace between the two parties interested, or where
it is disturbed, to restore it

394 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN

Thus^ we wholly agree that in the question of crea-
tion the investigation of the succession and of all modal-
ities in the apjwarance of the single elements of the
world, is entirely left to natural science, and that the
biblical records should on the one hand be investigated
wholly, and even to their remotest consequences, from a
literary, historical, and exegetical point of view, and on
the other hand be tested with equal fullness and com-
pleteness as to their religious contents. The litei-ary and
exegetical examination of the Mosaic account of ci*ea-
tion will reveal that its conceptions of that which in the
creation of the world belongs entirely to the natural
process, do not go beyond that which otherwise belongs
to the sphere of knowledge and views of antiquity, as
well as of immediate perception of nature in general ;
and that we cannot expect any scientific explanation from
it, because man really came last on the stage of earth,
and. is therefore not able to say an3'^thing, founded upon
autopsy, about the origin of all the other creatures
which preceded his appearance. Just as- little could the
first men possess and deliver to their oflFspring a remem-
brance of the first beginnings of their own existence.
Moreover, the literary and exegetical interpretation of
the Bible will also refer to other passages of the Holy
Scripture which entirely differ from the succession of
creations, as they are related in Genesis i ; so, e. jr., be-
sides Job XXXVIII, 4-11, the secx)nd account of creation
in Genesis ii, 4-25 : again a proof that what we read in
the Biblical record of creation about the succession in
the appearance of creatures is not binding upon us.
Religion can have nothing to say against these results ;
it will not reject the information of man as to the succes-

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 295

sion and the modalities in the appearance of the single
elements of the world, which it receives from natural
science, and will not expect it by means of a special
supernatural manifestation ; it will willingly accept it
from natural science, and simply make use of it*in such
a way that in nature and its processes it also perceives a
manifestation of God. Now, when it examines the differ-
ent Biblical accounts of creation as to their religious sub-
stance^ it will find in them such a pure and correct idea
of divine nature and divine action — such a pure concep-
tion, equally satisfying to mind and to science, of the
nature of man, of his position in nature, of the nature
and destination of the two sexes, of the ethical nature
and the ethical primitive history of man, — it will espe-
cially have to acknowledge in the Biblical account of
creation, in spite of all points of collision with the
cosmogonies of paganism, such an elevation above them,
such an exemption from all theogony^ with which heattien
cosmogonies are always mixed up, that we are perfectly
right in perceiving in these records the full and unmis-
takable elements of a pure and genuine stream of mani-
festation, which pours into mankind.

So far we find oui*selves in full harmony with a the-
ology which, in the manner indicated, reconciles the
religious interest with the historical and critical interest.
We find the points of view to which this perception
leads, represented with special clearness and attractive-
ness in Dillmann's Revision of Knobel's *'Commentar
zur Genesis" ("Commentary on Genesis"), Leipzig,
Hirzel, 1875.

But it seems to us that a readiness to be just to
historical criticism and impartial exegesis has hindered

296 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

theologians occupying this standpoint from being just
ali*o to the religious elemcni^ in its full meaning, in refer-
ence to a very important part of the Mosaic account of
creation, in which the author of it shows quite a decided
religious interest. We mean the six days of creation^
together with the seventh day^ the divine Sabbath. The-
ologians became too quickly satisfied with the exegetical
perception of these seven days, as creative, earthly days,
of twenty - four hours ; and this hindered them from
assigning to the religious meaning the full importance
which these days have in that record. That the idea
and the number of the days in that account have a high
religious meaning to the author, is clear from the follow-
ing : The account in Genesis i, 1-24, belongs to that
series of parts of the Pentateuch which we call the
original, and which has the Sinaitical Law as the centre
of its belief. The division of the days into weeks, each
having six working days and *one day of rest, which
possibly existed before, but which received obligatory
importance to Israel first by the Sinaitical legislation, so
far controls that account of the creation of the world
that, next to the sublime perception of the dignity and
position of man, it forms its very quintessence. The
account makes that divine week of creation, with its six
working days and its divine day of rest, the divine pro-
totype and model for the human division of time ; and
the Decalogue also, in the conception which it has in
Exodus XX, directly bases the commandment of the
Sabbath on the divine week of creation. Now, if we sup-
pose that the author took these days as earthly days of
twenty-four hours, wo are first of all obliged \o reject as
a child-like error the idea on which from religiovs reasons

POSITIVE CHRISTLVNITY. 297

— not from reasons of a mystical idea of God, but from
direct practical religious reasons — he puts great impor-
tance ; an idea with which he establishes an institution
of human life which has been preserved through many
thousands of years and is still preserved as the exceed-
ingly blissful basis of all social lite. For that the crea-
tion of the world, from the beginning of things up to
the appearance of man, demanded more than six times
twenty-four hours, is beyond any doubt. Moreover, we
should be oblige<i to reject the arguments of such a
central religious custom as Sabbath-rest in a record in
which we have to assign an absolute and lasting religious
value to all other religious elements of it, as to the ideas
of the unity, omnipotence, and wisdom of God, of his
creation through the creative word, of the perfection of
his works, of man bearing the image of God. We
should even see that idea of God which presents itself
to us out of all other characteristics of that record in
such spotless purity and sublime magnitude, sink down
to a decided insignificance through the identification of
the divine days of creation with our earthly days of
twenty-four hours. All this certainly brings near to us
the question: do we make a correct exegesis, do we cor-
rectly refid that record, when we think that the author,
because he speaks of days, must necessarily have under-
stood earthly days, such as we know now ?

We readily perceive how interpreters have arrived
at this view. The divine sections of creation in the
Mosaic account show themselves too decidedly as days to
make possible any other interpretation then to take them
as days. Now from experience we do not know of any
other days than of earthly days of twenty-four hours ;

''■IB. SJTA^r <^. .%.■ ^ j; :■ ^j>^ .- ■ ^ jSa?

- - ■ 1 * -

.- ^':-

298 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

and therefore the conclusion naturally follows, that the
author also took the divine days of creation as such
earthly days of twenty-four hours. A simple reference
of the same to periods, so that we should again think of
fixed periods of the earth or of the world, would espe-
cially pervert the literal sense— would entirely remove
firom the account the idea of " day " which is so essential
to the author of the record, and thereby render obscure
the archetype of the divine week of creation for the
human divisions of time ; and the looked-for harmony
between the Biblical days and the geological periods of
the earth would by no means be established by such an
identification of the days of creation with the periods of,
the world : for the geological or even the cosmic and
astronomical periods are nowhere in congruity with (he
Biblical days of creation.

But the question, however, is : are there not evidences
in the Biblical account itself which show that the author
did not take these days as creative earthly days of twen-
ty-four hours ? We have to answer this question decid-
edly in the affirmative.

In the first place, it is an established fact that these
days of the week of creation were also, according to the
meaning of the author, days of God, Now that such
days of God, even with the most childish and simple
worldly knowledge of that early period of mankind, so
soon as such a pure idea of God^ as appears from the
whole account, is at the bottom of the conception, can no
Xon^Qvhei identical with the days of the creature, is to be
inferred beforehand with che greatest probability from
the purity of that idea of God, and is even expressly

1

\

'■I

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 2&9

confirmed by special evidences in the record itself. We
have to mention no less than four of them.

The days of creation present themselves as days of
God^ which as such diff^erfrom tfie creative days of earth
by the fact that with them the day and the work of the
day are absolutely identical. In the creative days, the
day and the work of the day are always different from
one another ; the days come and go as temporal frames
which include everything that happens during these
days, whether we know it or not. Now we may turn
our attention to and mention ever so many works of an
earthly day : there always happen innumerable other
things which also belong within the frame of that day
and which are only not observed by us. It is quite
another thing with those Biblical days of creation : here
the day begins with the beginning of the day's work ; it
exists and passes on single and alone in the course of the
work of the day, and it comes to an end when the
day's work is completed, and the work of the following
day begins : it comes to an end with "evening and
morning."

We also lay some stress, though not very much,
upon the fact that, in the account, that which makes and
regulates the earthly day is created not before the fourth
day of creation. Genesis i, 14 : ''And God said, Let there
be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the
day from the night ; and let them be for signs and for
seasons, and for days and years." We admit that
if we were obliged for other reasons to suppose that the
author of the account took the days of creation as com-
mon earthly days of twenty-four hours, we must and
should find it possible that the author had been able to

300 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

suppose the existence and the course ot such earthly
days even before the creation of sun, moon« and stars;
for he certainly could not yet have the scientific percep-
.tion that the sun with its light and the rotation of the
earth were the only cause of an earthly day. But it is
easier and more natural for us to bring that passage,
Genesis i, 14, into accord with the conception that the days
of creation are divine days which, as such, are different
from creative days, and on one of which God also
created that which originates creative days.

Another evidence in the account is of still greater
importance for our conception of daj-^s. These days of
creation in the Biblical record have no nigkt. The
account closes the work of each day with the words:
" And the evening and the morning were the first day^^
*' the second day^^'* etc. Now, if we have to suppose
that the author took these days as common earthly days,
it would be quite impossible to understand why, after
having mentioned at the close of the day's work that it
now became evening, he omits the long night of twelve
hours, and, although not having said anything of the
night, makes the morning which follows the latter, the
end of the preceding day; and why he does not say,
''and it became evening "and "it became nighty the
first day," etc. We then could not avoid the question:
what, according to the conception of the author, did God
do in these six nights of his week of creation ? But if
we suppose that the author took the days as days of
God, and therefore, in his conception of the days of
creation, elevated the same above the common earthly
days of the creature, and so represented them to himself
as he alone, through his idea of God, thought he might

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 301

venture to do, then that mode of expression, so exceed-
ingly strange under all other suppositions, appears very
simple and natural to us. For the author did not men-
tion a night, because these days simply had no night;
and they had none, because as days of God they covid
have none — because with God there is no night; because
the rest of God, as the seventh day shows, is only a day
of rest and not ia night of rest. And the author saw
the morning immediately following the evening of his
divine day of creation, and recognized in this morning
together with the evening immediately preceding it, the
close of the day, because the accomplishment of the day's
work (evening) already contained in itself the preparation
of the following day's work, or at least pointed to the
coming of the latter.

Finally, the fact that, according to the Biblical
account, the seventh day still lias no end^ is just as
decisive for us. The end of each of the six days is.
mentioned by the solemn repetition of the words: ''And
the evening and the morning were the first day," etc.;
but it is not mentioned in regard to the seventh day. Now
if, according to the meaning of the author, the seventh
day had also had its end like any of the six preceding
days, he would at the seventh and last day have had
doiihle reason for mentioning its end; and the omission
of that concluding word would indeed be inconceivable.
When Dillman says: "The formula ' and (it became) the
evening' is wanting, because the account is here at an
end, and is no longer to be carried over to another day,
and because for that reason its designation as seventh
day is presupposed in v. 2," we have to reply that,
under the supposition of the days of creation having

302 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

been common earthly days, a carrying over of &e
account to further days was certainly to be expected,
even if from nothing else than the formtda: ^^ And the
evening and the morning were the first day,'' «tc. For
then the human weeks could have followed the week of
God, in which man, following the divine example,
would have had to work six days and to rest one. The
same commentator says (p. 24): '*The author could not
even have dared make a statement about the life-dura-
tion of the first men, if to him the day in which he was
created had been an indefinitely long period of time."
But, according to the conception of the Biblical author
supposed by us, only the " day of God," in which he
was created, would have been an indefinitely long period
of time (although we are not willing to identify the
days of God with certain earthly periods of time); the
earthly days and the earthly years, on the other hand,
would have their existence after the fourth day of crea-
tion, and thus, according to that view, we could estimate
and name the earthly years and days of all that whicli
happened before the fourth day of creation, under the
condition that we have, or believe we have, the means
of estimating them. When Dillmann continues: "On
the contrary, the author took these days as nothing else
than days," we wholly agree with him; but add to it:
"not days of the creature, but days of God."

By this long duration of the seventh day, we are
obliged to draw still another conclusion ; namely, that
according to the conception of the author the six pre-
ceding days also must have far exceeded the duration of
earthly days. This leads us to another Biblical analogy,
whose direct power of demonstration for a long dnni-

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 303

tion of the Biblical days of creation is, it is true, justly
contested, but which, as soon as we have to assume for
other reasons that according to the author the days of
creation far exceed the earthly days as to duration,
becomes a strong support of this view. For it is cer-
tainly not unimportant that in the 90th Psalm, the psalm
of Moses, the mediator of the Sinaitical legislation, to
the circle of ideas of which that account of the creation
so entirely belongs, the thought is expressed which is
also taken up in the second letter of St. Peter, with its
developed cosmological conceptions : namely, the
thought "that one day i^with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day."

With that exegesis of the seventh day as one still
remaining up to the present, we are in clear accord with
the more developed theology of the New Testament, and
with the interpretation which it itself gives of that
divine day of rest. Jesus himself, in St. John, v. 17,
puts aside a reproach of the Pharisees in reference to a
healing on the Sabbath, with the words: ''My father
worketh hitherto, and I work." This answer only has a
meaning in the sense : my father worketh hitherto,
although, since the accomplishment of the days of crea-
tion, he enjoys the Sabbath-rest ; and thus I also work
on the Sabbath as on a work-day. And the Letter to the
Hebrews, in its fourth chapter, looks through the medium
of the ninety-fifth Psalm back to this Sabbath of crea-
tion which, as a day of rest of God, exists to-day, and
the entering into which is given and promised to the
people of God.

By this whole conception of the Biblical week of
creation, which appears to us exegeticaUy much more

304: THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

natural and unconstrained than any other, we alone
reach that conception which the author of that record
intends to reach ; namely, a conception really worthy of
God, of his temporal relation to the world, and of the
relation of human days to the divine days of creation \
we get a foundation for the commandment to keep the
Sabbath, the idea of which can be completed without
disturbing the idea of God. The relation of God to the
whole temporal course of this present world, from its
beginning to its end, for the religious mode of contem-
plation of man who, as the image of God, looks to the
creative activity of God for a prototype and an example
for his own activity, can be comprised in one single,
great, divine week, whose first six days last to the com-
pletion of the creation of man, -and whose seventh day
still lasts and will last to the completion of the course
of the world — till the latter itself, and mankind with it^
can enter into the divine rest.

From this religious interpretation, which we have to
ascribe to that Biblical idea of the divine week of crea-
tion, it by no means follows that religion has to demand
of natural science that it shall reach in its cosmoffonic
investigations the same succession in the appearance of
things as we find in the Biblical account. This would be
nothing else but an actual carrying of a pretended relig-
ious interest over beyond the limits of a realm in which
the deciding vote belongs to natural science. However
incomplete the cosmogonic knowledge of the latter may
be, it neviertheless is at present established clearly enough
to reject forever such a demand. Astronomy convinces
us that it is entirely inconceivable that all which belongs
to the work of the fourth Biblical day of creation, even

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 305

the whole formation of stars and of our system of
planets, succeeded the work of the third day, the form-
ation of earthly continents and plants. And geology
in its strata, which exhibit petrifactions, shows us that
the relative Biblical days' works in reality did not suc-
ceed one another alternately in such a way that the one
began where the other ceased, but that from the begin-
ning of organic life the works of the third and the fifth
days from the carboniferous period, also the works of. the
third, fifth, and sixth days, developed themselves per-
fectly by the side of each other. It would be an excess
of refinement to identify any Biblical day of creation
with any period or any complex of periods in the devel-
opment of the earth or of the world.

On the other hand, for a Christianity founded upon
the Holy Scripture, it is still not entirely without interest
to compare the results of natural science aiid the extent
and s^uicession of the BiMical days* works xoith one another.
For a declaration which undertakes to trace something
which has so deep a hold on human life as the Sabbath-
rest, back to the prototype of directly divine action, is
certainly worthy of attention. Now if we wish to make
such a comparison, we can only do it in exact analogy
with the way and manner in which we com pare the predic-
tions of the prophetical word with their fulfilment. For
in so far as the declarations of that Biblical record about
the circumstances of creation have reliirious value of
which we are to take notice, they as declarations con-
cerning events of which man certainly cannot have his-
torical knowledge of his own, come entirely under the
point of view of the prophetical word ; with the excep-
tion that they do not contain a forward-looking but ti
20

30ti THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

backward-looking prophecy. This is one of the most
correct and fruitful thoughts which Johann Heinrich
Kurz, in his " Bibel und Astronomic " ('* Bible and
Astronomy"), Berlin, Wohlgemuth, 1st edition, 1842,
has expressed, but has fantastically misused, in that
work, in general so prolific of indefensible positions;
a fate which, as is well known, the forward-looking
prophecy has had also often enough to undergo.

In the same manner as we have to explain the for-
ward-looking prophecy from two factoi's — on the one
hand, from the circumstances of time, the knowledge,
the disj)ositions, and the characters of prophets ; on the
other, from the receptivity of their mind for the mind
of God and the last purposes of his actions — we also
have explained that record of creation from two factors :
on the one hand, from the view and the knowledge of its
time, and on tlic other from the receptivity of its author
for a pure and living idea of God and of the religious
relations of human life. And we shall also have to do
likewise when interpreting it. For the interpretation of
the forward-looking prophecy, we have behind us the
experience of thousands of years, from which the fol-
lowing principles of treatment and interpretation have
resulted. As long as such a prophetic word is not yet
fulfilled, so long, indeed, its meaning is and remains the
object of Christian faith and Christian hope; but it is diflS-
cult and almost impossible to distinguish in it, what is last-
ing substance, and what is transient form. Perhaps many a
thing is looked upon as substance, which in the fulfilment
appears to be only an image and form ; and perhaps
many a thing as form, which in the fulfilment shows
i I self as a more concrete reality than we had supposed.

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 307

And it would even be psychologically a violent assumi)-
tion, if we should presuppose in the mind of the prophet
a still greater knowledge of the future course of things,
than that which he expresses ; or if we should separate
him in his worldly knowledge, and even in the form of
his prophetic utterances, from the views and limits of
his time. But by far the most fruitless effort of all
would be to construct beforehand out of his words the
particulars of the historical course of the future.
Attempts of this kind have been defeated whenever they
have been made. But if the fulfilment of such a pro-
phetic word has once taken place, it is a joy and a
strengthening of faith to all following generations , and
even after the final fulfilment of all prophecy, it will still
be a joy to the children of God in their perfection, to com-
pare prophecy and fulfilment and to allow the prophecy
to be illumined by the light of fulfilment, the fulfilment
by that of prophecy.

All this finds its full application to the Biblical nar-
rative of creation. That which in the forward-lookin«:
prophecy is the historical fulfilment, is in the backward-
looking the scientific investigation. So long as the
latter was not directed at all to the prehistoric history
of the earth, it was an audacious undertaking to separ-
ate in the Biblical six days' work substance and form
from one another; it was and is still an unpsychological
violence to suppose in the human author of the nar-
rative all possible knowledge of psychical and scien-
tific secrets, and to lift him above the child-like views of
his time concerning the things of this world. But it
was by far the most fruitless undertaking to construct
in detail from his words a picture of the real circum-

308 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

stances of the creation and development of the world.
Attempts of this kind have been often made; but they
have produced nothing but dreams. And certainly the
attempt to control and correct natural investigation by
means of such dreams would be like trying to correct
well-established facts of history by the prophecies of a
still earlier period, or even to prove them false. But
from the time when natural science, as it is at present,
began to pay attention to the prehistoric history of the
earth and even of the universe, such a comparison has
been possible.

It tells us, ife is true, that the Biblical days' works did
not follow each other in the course of earthly and cos-
mic developments in such a way, that the one began
where the other ceased, but that they passed on in the
long lines of their course, beside one another, and above
one another. But looking upon their meridian, altitudes^
they nevertheless, where we are able to undertake
certain geological comparisons, follow one another
exactly in the same order in which the days follow one
another in that Biblical record. The meridian altitude
of the third day (for here the certainty of geological
knowledge first begins for us) has to be looked for where
the continents are formed and the vegetable life prepon-
derates on earth : and that is the carboniferous 2^(^i'iod.
The meridian altitude of Xhefour'th day must have been
reached where for the first time the covering of vapor
and clouds of the earthly atmosphere peniianently
parted, and sun, moon, and stars became visible : and
geology finds this time in the period which lies between
the carboniferous period and the trias — in the Permian
period^ as it is called in England, in the dyaa of the

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 309

fossiliferous and of cupriferous slate and Zechstein^ as
we call it in Germany. The meridian altitude of the
Jlfi/t day has to be looked for where ocean life, with its
sauria and innumerable animals, gave its impress to
organic life on earth, and the air was filled with inhabi-
tants : geology calls such a lime the secondary period of
trias, lura, and chalk. That ocean-life preponderated
in this period, is beyond any doubt ; while in general
geology gives us more meagre information about the
inhabitants of the air than of the animals of the ocean
and land. The flying sauria of lura are still character-
istic enough to leave at least the possibility that the
winged world, which in value still stands below the
mammalia, assisted in giving to that secondary period
its proper type. Finally, the meridian altitude of the
sixth day cannot be anywhere else than where the ani-
mals of the land became the most characteristic inhab-
itants of the globe, and where man appeared : and that
is the tertiary period of geology, in which mammalia
appeared in great numbers and variety, and at the end
of which we find the first traces of the appearance of
man.

We nevertheless do not assign special weight to the
establishment of such a correspondence. The religious
value of the idea of a divine week of creation is ren-
dered perfectly certain to us, if we only find that it is
reconcilable with a pure idea of God. That \vould not
be the case, if we had to look upon the week of crea-
tion as an earthly week ; but it is perfectly so, if the
divine week stretches over the whole temporality of the
course of the world. Therewith we can be satisfied.
For we have neither theological nor philosophical nor

310 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

scientific evidences enough tx) draw from these Biblical
utterances any vietaphysical conclusions in reference to
the relations of God to the temporal development of the
world. We should not dare to contest directly such
metaphysical relations : for the human week, with its
day of rest, is such an eminently fortunate and blissful
institution, the observance of this command is accom-
panied by such a striking prosperity in all life-relations
of a people, its non-observance by such an evident curse,
and, moreover, the idea of man bearing the image of
God is such a fruitful idea, satisfying equally spirit and
mind, that we have to remember the possibility that the
institution of the human week, with its day of rest, is
certainly founded on the real relations of the life-process
of that creature which bears the image of God to the
activity of its divine prototype upon the earth. But
nevertheless, we just as little dare to attempt or to chal-
lenge the establishment of such metaphysical relations :
for a theosophistic treatment of numbers seems to us no
fruitful field for the promotion of religion — neither for
the promotion of religious knowledge nor for that of
religious life.

Still, however, the result of our comparison between
Biblical and scientific interpretation seems to us worth
mentioning for a special reason. It is true, we have
found a succession of the ineridian altitudes of the Bib-
lical days in the same order in which, according to the
Biblical relation, the days' works followed one another ;
but we have found in the toted course of the Biblical days
that their works in reality passed on in long lines con-
temporaneously with one another. Now, since that first
part of our result — the succession of meridian altitudes

POSITIVE CIIKISTIAMTY. 311

— is the least we have to expect, if the counting of the
days shall at all have an objectively real ground in the
world's process, on the other hand, the second part of
our result — the far-reaching contemporary existence of
the different Biblical days — has an exact analogy with
those prophecies whose partial or entire fulfilment per-
mits us a more certain judgment of the character of
prophecy and a more certain comparison between proph-
ecy and fulfilment. Even the prophetic world knows of
a divine day, which in the prophecies occupies an emi-
nent and central position : it is the day of the Lord as
the day of judgnvent and salvation. This day of the
Lord also stands before the eye of the prophet, cer-
tainly not as a common earthly day of twenty -four
houi-s, but as a day of God rising above earthly days
and embracing an infinite number of them, although it
also has its very distinct meaning which comes into the
earthly temporality. But in the historic fulfilment,
there happen along with it a thousand things which do
not belong to it ; for two-thirds of mankind that day did
not dawn at all ; and as to its temporal course, it had its
dawn in the beginnings of mankind, — its sunrise took
place eighteen hundred years ago, and its meridian alti-
tude is still impending.

Finally, that even the piety of those who composed
the Biblical records, and of all those wdio see in them
the manifested evidences of their faith, assigns no relig-
ious weight to the succession of the days' w^orks, becomes
clear from the before-mentioned fact, that the second
account of creation, which makes man and his ethical
primitive history its centre, relates the creation of the
inhabitants of the earth in quite a different order from

312 THE THEORIES OF DARV.'IX.

the first one. We shall treat of this point again, and
more in detail, for another reason, in the following
section.

We still have to treat of the question as to what
position the Hol}'^ Scripture and Biblical Christianity
take regarding a devdopment in general : and here also
we have only to say that they are very favorable to such
an idea. The works of the six days themselves are in
their succession nothing else but a development, a per-
manent differentiation of that which was not separated
before, a continuous unfolding of the more simple into
the more comi)lex, an always progressing preparation of
the globe for newer and higher forms of existence, until
finally man appeared. In the Biblical account of crea-
tion, the idea which forms the basis of ever}'^ evolution
theory, (namely, that the new which appears has its
conditions and suppositions, its creative secondary
reasons, in the preceding), is pronounced with Special
clearness. When it says : *'Let the Earth bring forth
grass and herb, . . . and the earth brought forth,"
etc. ; "And God said : Let the waters bring forth abun-
dantly the moving creature that hath life," etc. ; "Let
the earth bring forth the living creature ; and it was
so;" and "God made the beast of the earth," — the
creative causality also is mentioned in the clearest words
by the side of and under the causality of the Creator, by
means of which the latter had made creatures. The
friendly relation between the Biblical account and the
evolution theory even goes so far that the Holy Scrip-
ture, like that theory, does not permit animals to come
forth from plants, although the latter represent the
lower,, the former the higher, and that plants are a neces-

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 313

sary condition for animals, but that even according to
the Bible both kingdoms come forth from the inorganic
of the earth. When treating of the creation of plants,
it says, ''Let the earth bring forth grass," etc. ; and
when treating of that of animals, it says, " Let the
earth bring forth the living creature." At last, if
science should once succeed in perceiving more clearly
than now the origin of the organic from the inorganic,
it would have in those words the means for a harmony
with the Biblical conception.

Now, just as evidently as the Holy Scripture is favor-
able, in general and as a whole, to the idea of evolution,
so certainly it seems to reject it precisely at that point
where the whole interest of our question lies ; namely,
in reference to the origin of the single species. For
here, when treating of the creation of plants as well as of
animals, it is said in most distinct words: ^^ after his
kind.'*^ But the contradiction is only apparent. As to
the way and manner in which God created every species,
w^hether he used secondary causes or not, nothing else
is said than that God created every species, that the
creatures exist in distinctly marked species, and that
these species are not chance, but lie in the plan of God
— that they are his work. This fact, that it was God
who wished to create each species as species, and in
reality created it, is just as firmly established, if the
species came forth from one another and were developed
in gradual transitions, as if they received their existence
in some other way. As, in the fifth day's work, we find
simply the words : '' And God said, Let the earth bring
forth the living creature : and it was so;" and " God
made the beast of the earth," — in precisely the same way

314 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

God could indeed create single plants and animals after
their kind^ in such a way that one should come forth
from another, that they should be developed from one
another.

§ 2. 2%€ Creation of Man,

The most important facts which we have to mention,
as bearing upon the position of the Christian doctrine of
the creation of man in reference to the evolution theory,
have been treated of in Chapter I, A. We have especially
convinced ourselves of the fact, that the new, even if it
has its secondary causes, and comes into existence in
gradual development, is no less a creation of God, and
has no less the full value of the new, than if it were
created instantaneously. Likewise man also stands before
us untouched in the full newness and dignity of his
being, in the full qualitative and not simply quantitative
superiority of the highest gifts of his mind, and espe-
cially of his personality, his ego, his liberty, — in one
word, in his full image of God, — ^whether we have to
look upon him as created in gradual development or as
created suddenly.

There are two circumstances in the Biblical account
from which we see that, although it is naturally silent as
to the descent problem, it not only knows and acknowl-
edges the connection of man with the lower creatures of
the earth, but also expressly directs attention to it.

One of these circumstances is connecting man's crea-
tion with that of land-animals, in a single day's work. We
do not lay more stress on this union than that of the Holy
Scripture, although it emphasizes so strongly the dignity
of man in his likeness to God and in his having entire

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 315

supremacy over the whole earth, and although it could
have found therein reasons enough for assigning a
proper day to the creation of man, to which the whole
preceding creation pointed, and whom the whole crea-
tion on earth should serve, yet in its account of the
creation it evidently desires man to be looked upon in
his connection as a creature with the animal world.
Moreover, we should not overlook, in the Biblical
account, that the benediction which God gives to the
animals of the water and the air, at the end of the fifth
day, is in the sixth day not pronounced over the land-
animals — although they certainly are as much entitled
to it as fish and birds — but over man. Of course, it is
presupposed that the land-animals naturally partake of
the benediction of man, so far as it can be due to them;
the benediction, namely, of fertility and of increase.
According to these indications and to the Biblical
conception, man stands in still another and closer con-
nection with the animal world than in that of mere
supremacy over it.

The second circumstance to which we have to call
attention, is the declaration (Genesis ii, 7), that God
created man out of earth ; or rather, as the literal
translation says: ''^And the Lard God formed man {of)
dust of the ground^ It is of no importance whether
the accusative "dust of the ground" is, as some say, a
mere appositive, or, as others explain it, the accusative
of matter. When the account calls man dust of the
ground, or a being formed of dust, the difierence is in-
finitely insignificant, whether the earthly matter out of
which God formed man who is dust of the earth, was an
animal organism or not ; Avhether man was formed

n
I

316 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

directly or indirectly out of the earth, and whether the
forming demanded a longer or a shorter time. For that
it did demand time, and that it was not an instantaneous
creation, is implied in the expression *' to form."

We call attention to this passage for still another
reason. The second account of creation, as it begins
Genesis ii, 4, and goes on to the end of the third chap-
ter, is strikingly different from the first account, Genesis
i-Genesis ii, 4. It has its origin in that author whose
book is called that of the Jehovist, or, more lately, the
judaico-prophetic book; and who, among all those that
have contributed stones to the building of the Penta-
teuch, gives the deepest insight into the nature of sin
and grace, and into the divine plan of salvation. Now
in this book, from the religious point of view so ex-
tremely worthy of attention, the account of the creation
is given quite differently. Man is the centre of the
account ; that which does not directly refer to him is
entirely omitted. The order in which the inhabitants of
the earth were created, is not only not divided into the
six day's works of the first account, and in verse 4 is
not only directly taken as the Avork of a single day, in
the expression DV2 (in the day, in which = when), with-
out especial stress being put upon the expression *' one
day," forDl^Shas become a particle; but this order is
entirely different from the other. In the second account,
the succession is the following : ''first, man; then, the
paradise into which man is placed; next, the trees (the
question at what time the rest of the vegetable world was
created is left entirely without answer); then, the deter-
mination to create also an assistant to man; next, the
creation of animals; finally, the creation of the woman out

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 317

of a rib of man. Now, although it is wholly beyond
doubt that the two accounts had different authors, the
question will nevertheless arise, how it was possible that
those who inserted , these two accounts in the Holy
Scripture, one after the other, could so harmlessly put
side by side and read one after the other these two
accounts, so entirely contradictory, without being
oblio^ed to think that the truth of the one would refute
the other. They certainly must have had in some way
the conviction that the one account was consistent with
the other. But such an agreement between the two
accounts is only possible when we either see in them
only ideal truths, or when one of the two shall repre-
sent the actual reality of the circumstances of creation,
and the other rather their ideal character. In case we
should have to make such a distinction, it cannot be
doubtful which of the two accounts has more of the
real, and which more of the ideal character. In the
first account nothing is related which does not give
direct points of connection in the real process, as we
can imagine it. In the second account, we find many
points which hardly permit a direct literal conception,
even on the part of the first readers of the account and
of the editors of the canon of the Old Testament : for
instance, besides the different order in which the first
account is given, the creation of the woman out of the
rib of man; this account, when ideally taken, is so inex-
pressibly comprehensive, pregnant, and deep — when
taken really, so perfectly improbable. It will be like-
wise difficult to believe that even the old readers of
the account — at least those of them who looked deeper
and were more enlightened — took with extreme literal-

318 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

ness the expression, that God breathed into the nostrils
of man who is dust of the ground, the breath of life.
The third chapter has still other features from which
we have at least to assume that the author did not at all
intend to give importance to an extremely literal con-
ception of it. Now, if the second account is the more
ideal one, the meaning of it is: that man, his being, his
aim, his primitive history, is made the centre of the
entire description, and around him all the rest is
grouped; while in the first account he appears to be more
the end of the whole creation — as he presents himself
to natural investigation in the real process of creation,
as the last member in the chain, not as the centre in a
circle or a star. Now if that is th^ case, if the second
account of creation, having man as its centre, is the
more ideal, then we certainly must not overlook the fact
that in the ideal account man is called dust of the
ground. Then the nature of dust also belongs, from
the ideal point of view, so necessarily to the nature of
man that the question, whether the connection of this
man who is dust of the ground, with this ground, is
brought about through the form of a preceding animal
organism, or not, is no longer of importance. Therefore,
if we oppose the animal ancestry of man for the general
reasons that we do not wish to descend from something
lower, that lower nevertheless is present as dust of the
ground. And if we oppose such a pedigree on account
of the ugliness and wickedness which exist in the
animal world, we have to point to the fact that, on the
one hand, mankind also has stains which are uglier than
those which disfigure the wildest beast of prey, and that,
on the other hand, the animal world shows features which

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 319

are so noble that no man need be ashamed of them. It
is certainly a right feeling to which Darwin, in his '* De-
scent of Man," gives expression, when he says : ^' For
my own part, I would as soon be descended from that
heroic little monkey who braved his dreaded enemy in
order to save the life of his keeper, or from that old
baboon who, descending from the mountains, carried
away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of
astonished dogs, as from a savage who delights to tor-
ture his enemies, oflTers up bloody sacrifices, practices
infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves,
knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest super-
stitions." We have but to add: — if only the coming
forth from the creative hand of God, the creation in his
own image, the communion with Him and being a child
of His, are preserved. And that all this can be preserved,
even when adopting descent and evolution, we have seen
from repeated considerations.

But we have to draw still another conclusion from
the diflference between the two accounts of creation. If
the succession, in which the inhabitants of the earth
appear in the first account, is so entirely different from
that in the second, as it evidently is, we have neces-
sarily either to give up the historical reality of the one
or of the other account, or of both, or to suppose that
the creation of the inhabitants of the earth took place in
a way and manner which makes it possible to perceive a
real connection of the succession in the first account, a^^
well m in that of the second, with the real processes of
creation. Now we do not at all intend to argue with
those who choose the first part of the dilemma ; we our-
selves join with them, and believe that salvation does

320 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

not depend upon the objective reality of that succession,
nor the possession of salvation on the faith of such
reality. But we leave to the consideration of those who,
in their religious convictions, think themselves bound to
the objective reality of both accounts, the following
thoughts : If not only ideal depth, but also a connection
with the empirical and historical reality of the process
of creation, is to be assigned to the succession of the
first account as well as to that of the second, it is only
possible by assuming a descent — namely, that man,
e. g,^ may be called in one sense the first of creatures,
inasmuch as with the first organism that was already
given which was afterwards developed into man, and
inasmuch as all which was otherwise created and devel-
oped as aspecial species, was only present on account of
that aim ; and that man in another, in the merely em-
pirico-historical sense, is still also the last of creatures.
Thus, then, the advocates of descent would find them-
selves in the unaccustomed position, equally surprising
to friend and foe, of being in a much more friendly
relation to the Biblical belief in revealed religion than
their opponents. We should see the apparent discords
not only between Scripture and nature, but also between
account and account, dissolved into harmony, and above
the double relation of the two accounts we should see
the morphological ideas of Oken and Gothe, the ide^s
of types of Cuvier, Agassiz, and Owen, the laws of devel-
opment of K. E. von Baer, and finally the ideas of
descent of Lamarck and Darwin, reach a friendty hand
to one another. And even the old joys of a teleological
view of nature, adorned indeed with queue and wig, but
at present rejected with too much disdain, even if they

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 321

are called ichthyo-teleological and insecto-teleological,
would attain in this reconciliation their modest, subordi-
nate place. Moreover, we should then have the satis-
faction of seeing again that a religiousness which in its
own realm gives absolutely free play to natural investi-
gation, and does not find it beneath its dignity to learn
from natural science, can on that account retain its own
autonomy in its own realm much more uncontestedly ;
and that, as it seems to us in the present case, it can go
much farther in the use which it makes of its autonomy
and in the extension of the revealed character of its
religious records to physical processes and circumstances,
than is either necessary or safe, and that it nevertheless
is rewarded for keeping peace with natural science by
more rich, more living, and more correct glimpses into
the harmony between the word of God and the work of
God, than would be the case with a religiousness which,
without regard to natural science, weaves its cosmog-
onies from the Holy Scripture alone.

§ 3. The Primitive Condition of Man : Paradise^ the Fall

oj^ Man^ and Primitive History.

After the Holy Scripture has narrated the creation of
man in two accounts, the second of them gives us a con-
tinuation in the well-known account of Paradise and of
the fall of man, with its consequences ; and the further
development of the Biblical doctrine, as well as of Chris-
tian theology, has also taken the substance and quintes-
sence of these narratives into its representation of the
Christian truths of salvation.

We shall not throw any obstacles in the way of bring-
ing about an understanding between the Darwinian vie-vi
21

322 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

and the Biblical primitive history, by acknowledging
the justice of the view that Christian piety might in
some way conUiin in itself the demand that also the form
m which the facts of truth in Genesis iii are given to us,
has historical reality. He who makes this demand has
only his own short-sightedness and imprudence to blame,
if he also loses the substance with the form, the fi«rura-
tive nature of which can be shown to him only too cer-
tainly. We acknowledge it as a real providence of God,
which intends faithfully to guard believing man agaiast
a senseless and slavish adherence to the letter, and
against grounding his means of salvation upon ini^ecare
foundations, that at the grand and venerable portal of
Holy Scripture two accounts stand peacefully beside one
another, which, if we penetrate through the form into
their substance, complete one another in magnificent and
profound harmony, but which, if we look upon the form
as their substance, so diametrically contradict each fAhnr
that we cannot do anything else but reject the one or the
other, or, still more logically, both. We think that this
hint is strong enough to be understood, and bear*, like
all bowing before truth and its power of conviction, rich
fruit not only for our knowledge, but also for the parity,
certainty, and richness of our religiousness. We •hall
not lose by this acknowledgment the character of reve-
lation and the impression of the truth of these Bi>ilir:al
records, but shall be able through them, and thmn^h
them alone, to gain and perceive it. It is tnie, the first
account, and still more the second — the account of the
creation and of the primitive history of man — has in it8
external form an exceedingly close relationship to the
poetical myths of the ancient nations of the Orient; but

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 323

its difference does not consist essentially in the form —
although this too, being the form of a true and correct
substance, shows differences enough from these heathen
myths — but consists in the substance itself. These
heathen myths certainly contain many beautiful, deep,
and true factors, but always, besides, fundamental ideas
which we have to reject as half-true or wholly erroneous:
sometimes a dualistic conception of God and the world,
sometimes a materialization of the divine, the spiritual,
and the ethical, sometimes fatalistic and sometimes
magic elements in great number. These Biblical repre-
sentations, on the other hand, certainly appear to us still
in a picturesque form which is analogous to that form-
ation of myth; for it really seems to be the onl}^ form
in which the mind of man, in his first epoch of life, was
able to perceive and represent supernatural and ethical
ti-uth, as we are to-day able to represent the highest
relations of our mind to the supernatural and the ethical
only in pictures and parables; but the Biblical represen-
tations offer us, under this plastic covering, a substance
which, in view of the most extensive criticism, of the
deepest speculation, and of the most enlightened and
practically most successful piety, is still established as
the purest, the most correct, and the most fruitful repre-
sentation of the nature of God, and of the ethical nature
and the ethical history of man.

Moreover, we shall not make it difficult to bring
about an understanding between the Darwinian theories
and the Biblical doctrine, by supporting the other view
taught by the Holy Scripture — that death came into the
animal world first through the fall of man, and that the
fall of man first brought the character of perishableness

324 THE THEORIES OF DAKWIN.

into the condition of the earth or even of the universe.
There are essentially three Biblical passages to which
those refer who think that they find such a view in the
Holy Scripture; namely, Romans v, 12; Romans vm, 19-
23, and Genesis iii ; but they are wrong. That the
Apostle Paul, in Romans v, 12, by the world, into
which death came through sin, did not mean the uni-
verse or the globe, but mankind, is plain enough from
the connection, and is only demanded by the difference
of meaning which in the Greek, as well as in the Ger-
man language, the word ^^ world " has according to its
connection. And in Romans vni, 19-23, where he
speaks of the subjection of the creature to vanity, he
does not mention a certain time in which it happened,
nor an historical occasion, as the fall of man, which
should have given the impulse to this subjection; but he
only says, in general, that it was God who " hath sub-
jected the creature to vanity," and that he hath "sub-
jected the same in hope,'*'^ He who reads this passage
without prepossession, can be led to no other idea than
to this : that God has subjected the creature to the law
of vanitv from the very beginning of creation — not
forever, but from the very beginning — with the inten-
tion that he shall also celebrate his transfiguration and
deliverance from the yoke of perishableness, together
with the perfection of mankind, and with the manifesta-
tion and transfiguration of the children of Grod. And
even the curse of the ground (Genesis in, 17) is no
cui-sing of the universe, or of the globe and its crea-
tures, but only a cursing of the ground; and of this not
on its own account, but only in its relation, as a means
of subsistence, to man, and in opposition to the exemp-

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 325

tion from labor which his life hitlierto had, and to the
agreeableness of his means of support in paradise.

After having thus rejected these two perversions of
the Biblical doctrine, there remains to us as an estab-
lished substance of the latter, and as an essential part of
Christian dogmatics, so far as it may come into contact
with the Darwinian views, at least the following: Man
was originally created by God, good and happy. To
his goodness there also belonged the possibility of hav-
ing a sinless development, as he ought to have had; and
to his happiness there also belonged a life amid surround-
ings wholly corresponding to him, and the possibility of
obtaining exemption from death and all evils by way of
a self-controlling submission to God, which resists
temptation. We puiposely express ourselves thus. For
^he Biblical primitive history does not say that man was
created with exemption from the law of death, but that
the latter must have been granted to him as a reward for
his submission : the tree of life stood bxj the side of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and only the eat-
ing of the fruit of the tree of life, by avoiding the eating
of the forbidden fruit, should have given to man that
immortality which he forfeited by disobedience. Man
became disobedient, and, in consequence of it, subject
to death; the harmony between man and his surround-
ings disappeared; the earth became to him a place of
labor and of death; and now began for man his histori-
cal development as a web of guilt, of punishment, and
of education and redeeming mercy.

Now, in the presence of this Biblical view, the ques-
tion comes up first of all: is a view according to which
man should have been able atid obliged to take a sinless

326 TUB THEORIES OF DARWIN.

development, and, in case he had taken it, should have
been exempt from the fate of death and of the ills pre-
ceding it, and endowed with immortality as to body and
soul — is such a view in any way reconcilable with the
Darwinian ideas of development, according to which
man came forth from the series of lower organisms, sub-
ject to death ?

We could avoid answering this question by a deduc-
tion similar to that which we drew in Chap. I, § 3, when
treating of the question of the reconcilableness of the
idea of evolution with theism, but of which we likewise
made no use. We could show that in this question no
other difficulties present themselves to the religious
consciousness, than such as existed long before the
appeamnce of the Darwinian theories and were over-
come by pious consciousness and religious reasoning.
For a difficulty entirely similar to that which here
appears to us, when looking upon the whole hunian
specie and its origin, stood before us heretofore, when
looking upon the human individual and his origin.
From the standpoint of Biblical Christianity, we ascril)e
to the human individual an immortality of the soul and
a coming resurrection of the body ; but we do not to
the human embryo at the beginning of it? development
in the womb. Now we know that the development of
man from that embryo to perfect man is wholly gradual ;
that we cannot observe and predicate of any organ, of
any quality, of any activity of body, soul, or mind,
exactly the moment when it comes into existence ; and
that therefore we cannot give the moment when we
could assume that something so decidedly great and new
as the immortality of the soul and the prospect of a

i»OSITIVE CIIKISTIANITV. 327

resurrection of the body, begins for the human individ-
ual. ' Although we know all this, nevertheless in all
discussions of the question whether we have to hope for
an immortality of the soul and a resurrection of the
body, the gradual development has hardly ever been, so
far as we know, a weight — in any case, never the deci-
sive weight — in the balance against the supposition of
an immortality. If we can look upon the idea of an
immortality of the soul and of a resurrection of the
body as reconcilable with the fact, that the human individ-
ual was only developed gradually out of something
which was still soulless and perishable, we also have to
look upon the other fact as reconcilable with the gradual
development of the whole species ; namely, that man, if
he should have developed himself without sin, would
have reached an immortality of body and soul. But we
shall not enter this path which would lead us around the
whole question. For the objection might be made, that
the scientific and philosophic Impossibility of assuming
an eternal duration of an individual that originated in
time, has, indeed, always been pointed out, and only the
assertion^ not the proofs of the contrary has been opposed
to it ; but that Darwinism puts this impossibility into new
and full light. Therefore, if we wish to reach a certain
basis for our conviction, nothing else remains to us but
to enter upon that question wholly and exclusively from
Darwinian premises.

Now these premises, indeed, indicate to us a develop-
ment of things, but a development of such a kind that
there appears to us something new, and always new in a
rising line. The rising of this line of development con-
sists in the fact that the spiritual comes forth from the

328 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

natural in permanent progress and in always higher
development : that mind vanquishes matter. The fii"st
new thing which meets us in the development of the
globe, is the organic and life ; the second, sensation and
consciousness ; the third, self-consciousness and free-will.
Now let us once suppose imaginary human spectators of
' every first appearance of these phenomena. Would he
who thus far had only known inorganic phenomena and
processes, have dared, before the appearance of life, to
utter the proposition : matter can also become living and
live ? And who would have dared to susforest the further
doctrine : matter can also feel and get a consciousness
of things? Finally, who would have dared even to say :
matter can also become a self-conscious and free pei'son-
ality? To every person who would have pronounced
such dreaflis of the future, there would have been
opix)sed, apparently, with full right, the inviolable
mechanism of the inorganic world. But all this never-
theless took place. If something material can be led so
far that a personality lives in it, that, with the assist-
ance of this material basis, is able to perceive the ideas
and the eternal, that can act in accordance with aims
and designs and can set itself the highest aims, and
that may even enter upon a loving and child-like rela-
tion to the highest primitive cause of all things, then we
are no longer permitted to say that the material, of
which the body of such a personality consists, could not
have been subjected to the service of such a personality
BO far, that the latter could have vanquished the elements
of the destruction of life in an etenial process of spon-
taneous renewal.

It is true, with such a concession alone we have not

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY 329

gained anything directly. For in ahstracto everything
is finally conceivable which does not contradict the
logical laws of reasonino^ — even the basilisk and the
mountain of diamonds in stories and fairy tales. But
such an abstract conceivableness has not the least value
for the knowledge of the real^ nor even for the knowledge
of the reaUy possible. For in the world of being and
becoming, everything in its last elements, forces, qual-
ities, and laws, as well as in the last causes of its devel-
opment, is something sq absolutely given^ that only after-
ward are we able to analyze that which is present, from
our observations, or to follow from the given factors that
which can be, or which under other conditions would
have become different, and that we are not able to syn-
thetically construct the one or the other in advance,
indei)endently from the factors of reality. If, therefore,
that concession shall attain a scientific value, and if the
conditional sentence : Man would not have been subject
to death if he had not sinned, is to become an admitted
and unassailable part of Christian theology, we have to
look in the realm of phenomena, and in the course of
that which took place, for fa^ts which prove that man,
if he had not committed sin, would not have died, and
which thus change that merely abstract possibility into
a real one.

Now we have such a fact in the resurrection of the
Lord. If it really took place, then it is the last earthly
stage in the course of the Lord's work of Redemption,
and then it permits us to draw conclusions backwards as
to what would have become of man, if he had not been
in need of this redemption, if he had had a sinless devel-
opment instead of one with sin.

330 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

We know very well that in mentioning this fact we
meet not only the opposition of those who contest a tele-
ological, theistic, and especially a Christian view of the
world, but also the natural doubts of those who defend
vnth warm interest teleology and the ethical fundamen-
tals and productive forces of Christianity, but who think
it more advisable to pass over the whole question of the
resurrection in cautious silence. The main consideration
which hinders them from believing in the reality of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, is not the want of historical
attestation, but rather the absolute want of any attested
analogy in the other events which have taken place on
the earth. What we commonly see and witness in the
dead, is without exception precisely the opposite of that
which is related about the further fi\te of Jesus crucified.
Now we have repeatedly had occasion to point out that
the want of analogy cannot at all be a proof of a fact's
not having taken place, supposing it otherwise well estab-
lished. Especially if a devdopment of events follows
aims, it lies in the nature of this development that in its
course in all the places where we really and actually can
speak of a development, of a process, things appear and
must appear which were not present before, and which,
even if they once appeared, nevertheless need not neces-
sarily be repeated, except at certain times which corre-
spond to the plan of development ; namely, when ''their
time has come." All these are events which are wantinsr
in analogy, but which cannot be doubted at all on that
account. That was the case with the first appearance of
organic life, also with the first appearance of beings hav-
ing sensation and consciousness ; moreover, it was the
case with the first appearance of each of the thousands

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 331

of species of organic beings : all these things, at the
time when they first appeared, lacked every analogy in
the past, and were perhaps repeated for some time in
primitive generations, perhaps not; at any rate, they
have all ceased to have analogies within the memory of
man. In an eminent degree does the first appearance of
man want every analogy with what we observe else-
where. We never see men appear on the stage of the
earth, who were not originated by men; yet this event,
so contrary to all analogy, did once take place, and
stands without parallel and analogy in the midst of the
series of events, so far as our knowledge can reach.

Thus the resurrection of the Lord must also neces-
sarily want analogy, in case it is an event which really
marks a station of progress in the development of earth-
ly creatures and their history, and in case also its nature
and its importance tend not to bring mankind, or at
least those who believe in him who has been raised,
at once under the influence of its physical consequences,
but only so far to prepare the way for these conse-
quences in intellectual and moral life-forces. And pre-
cisely such an event is the resurrection of Jesus, accord-
ing to the announcement of the Lord as to himself and his
Avork, and according to the development of this personal
testimony in the minds of his first disciples, and also
according to what Jesus actually became for mankind,
and especially for Christianity. According to this testi-
mony of Jesus and his apostles, and to this actual ex-
perience, Jesus is the Redeemer, whose work is to make
amends for the destruction caused by sin, and thus to
originate and establish a new creation in mankind
which, from inner, mental, and spiritual beginnings.

332 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

renews nuinkind, aiul becomes the leaven which, in long
periods of labor, leads it to the goal of perfection ; a
perfection in which the whole creation shall participate
— with which, indeed, mankind is inseparably connected
on the whole natural side of its existence. But then it
also lies in the nature of the resurrection of Jesus to be
single in its kind, and without analogy, until that time
shall have come in the development of mankind when
the last enemy, death, shall be forever removed and
overcome.

We quite fail to conceive how those who acknowl-
edo^e desio:n in the world, can avoid the acknowledijment
of the resurrection of Jesus — supposing the fact to be
historically established: whereof we shall have to speak
hereafter. It is, indeed, quite impossible to speak of a
goal of mankind, if annihilation — annihilation of single
personalities as well as of mankind as a whole— is its
certain destiny. Where and what is this end of man-
kind, if the last generation of the globe is to perish
with the destruction of this globe, or languish and die
even before that destruction, and if nothing will be left
of mankind beyond the soulless material for new form-
ations in their putrifying corpses and desolate homes
and works of art? Where and what is this goal, if all
which once set human minds and hearts in motion, and
which stimulated the intellectual and moral work of the
human races, simply ceases to exist, no longer finds any-
where even a place of remembrance, and nowhere has a
friiit to exhibit, except perhaps in the mind of a God
who once set the cruel play in motion, and now permits
it to cease, in order to procure for himself a change in
the entertainment ? A mere immortality of human

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 333

souls, without' resurrection and without the perfec-
tion and transfiguration of the universe, is not aft'orded
us by this goal, which we certainly need, if we are to
think at all of a goal for mankind. For if nil departing
souls should be carried into another world whose only
relation to the further course of the earthly history of
mankind was in the fact, that the dead are always
gathered in it ; into another world whose only relation
to the past of the earthly history of mankind should be
in the fact, that it is divided into a heaven and a hell for
those who reach it ; if in this world everything should
move on, without end, in eternal coming and going ; and
if nothing could be said of that other world than that
everything there is different from ours — even that we
should there have no possible points of contact with this
world: then we should have nothing else but a gloomy
dualism of the world for which neither our intellectual,
nor our psychical, and least of all our physical, organi-
zation is in any way prepared, we should have in it no
satisfaction of our noblest instincts, no goal to which we
would be led by any of the guides who show us the
paths which we have to follow on earth. Only a resur-
rection and transfiguration of the earth and the universe,
as well as of a glorified mankind, show us such a goal.
For this aim, for such a real continuation of life of the
single personality, and of all mankind, after the long
work of moral and intellectual development, all noble and
worthy instincts of mankind are prepared — from the
instinct of self-preservation up to the instinct of self-
sacrifice for ideal purposes and the instinct of moral
perfection and community with God. We find that in
all the rest of creation, instincts and inherent powers

334 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

are present to be satisfied. The naturalistic tendencies
which at present control so many minds, are very much
inclined to found their whole view of the world upon
this correlation of instinct, function, and satisfaction.
Should, then, the highest instincts of the highest crea-
ture on earth alone make an exception ? Have they
originated from illusions, and do they lead to illusions?
We cannot refrain from quoting a word which Alb.
Reville, of Rotterdam, has written in the first part of
the October issue of the " Revue des Deux Mondes,"
1874, on the occasion of a criticism of E. v. Hartmann's
''Philosophy of the Unconscious"; though it was
written only in defence of theism in general. We quote
from a report of E. P., in the Augsburger Allgem.
Zeitung^ Oct. 27, 1874, which is all at present at our
command: " When the young bird, fluttering its wings
on the edge of its mother's nest, launches forth for the
first time, it finds the air which carries it, while a
passage is opened for it. Instinct deceived the bird
just as little as it deceives the multitude of large and
small beings which only live in following its incitations.
And should man alone, whom spiritual perfection
attracts — man whose characteristic instinct it is to raise
himself mentally toward the real-ideal, the superiority
of which he cannot suflSciently describe, should man,
who obeys his nature, dash his head against the wall
built of unhewn stones of unconscious, blind, and deaf
force? Nature, indeed, has too much spirit — according
to Hartmann himself — to indulge in such an absurdity ;
and the philosophy of the ' unconscious Unconscious '
will never permit it." It is true, thei'e is actually pres-
ent in mankind, and in it alone, such a discord between

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 335

instinct and satisfaction : man has in himself instincts
which are opposed to sin and death, and nevertheless sin
and death exist. But the redemption through Christ,
and especially the knowledge of his resurrection, an-
nounces to us that this discord is removed.

Therefore, he who in general acknowledges that man-
kind in its development has had given to it goals which
correspond to its gifts and instincts, has every reason to
look about and see whether, in the course of human his-
tory, certain things have happened which point at such
aims — indications which prophetically assure mankind,
that it advances toward a spiritual and moral perfection,
and toward an undiminished participation of all members
of mankind in this perfection. Such an assurance is offered
us in the resurrection of Jesus ; and therefore, all who
have not abandoned a teleological view of the world,
have reason for examining it with reference to the degree
of its historical truth. This degree is the highest which
we can in general claim of any historical event.

In order to show this with such brevity as is neces-
sary in the present book, and at the same time to guard
ourselves against every danger of prejudice in the inves-
tigation, we shall for this occasion assume hypothetical! y
that all, even the most extreme, assertions of Biblical
criticism as to the authenticity and inauthenticity of the
books of the New Testament, and as to the difference of
their component parts and the time of their composi-
tion, are correct and proven ; and see what then remains
established. In the first place, it is an acknowledged
fact, that Peter first, then the eleven apostles at different
times, and between these more than five hundred 'M^reth-
ren" (i. ^., nearly or fully all who had preserved their

336 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

attachment to the Lord till his death), saw the appear-
ances of the risen one, a few days after his death ; and,
indeed, under the most different circumstances, and
under mental conditions in which they did not at all expect
any such second appearance. We have, in regard to this,
the ipost authentic written evidence of the apostle Paul,
in the fifteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corin-
thians : a letter whose authenticity no criticism has dared
to doubt. This letter was written in the spring of 58 :
and Paul himself had already been changed from a [)er-
secutor into a believer in Christ in the year 36 — i. e.^ one
year after the death of Jesus, which took place in 35 ;
he went to Jerusalem in 39, and here everything was
related to him by Peter, as we know from his letter
(likewise not contested) to the Galatians. Thus the
authentic information of the man, who in 58 collected the
historical proofs of the reality of the resuiTection of
Jesus for his Corinthian Christians, goes back to four
years after the death of Jesus, and to the personal wit-
nesses of the appearances ; as in that letter he also refers
to the fact that ''many of these five hundred brethren
are still living." • Moreover, it is an established fact,
that the first written evidences of the evangelical histor}^
from which our canonical gospels subsequently originated,
likewise contained accounts of the appearance of ihc
risen one. Finally, it is an established fact that, from
the very beginning, the whole meaning of evangelical
preaching turned on the two facts of the death and of
the resurrection of Jesus, as on the two cardinal points
of all preaching of salvation ; also that all the faith of
those who embraced the Gospel was founded upon these
two facts, as upon the historical fundamentals of the sal-

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 337

vation which comes from Jesus ; and that thus Chris-
tianity, with all its effects, which have unhinged the old
world and diffused sti^eams of blessing over mankind,
has its historical basis in faith in the death of Jesus and
his resurrection. This is our historical chain of proof.
And that evidence which gives certainty to its most im-
portant link, on which everything depends — the appear-
ance of the risen one — is the entire failure of all the
attempts at explaining that appearance from a seeming
death, from an intended deception, from a self-delusion,
from a vision and an ecstasy, from a poetic myth ; in
short, from any other cause than, that the Lord really
appeared to his disciples as the man who was dead, but
who is risen and lives. We cannot follow Keim in all
his methods of reconstructing the life of Jesus, and we
believe that he is much too timid regarding the conse-
quences which follow from an objective, real appearance
of Jesus after his death ; but we acknowledge it as a
high merit of his christological works, that although he
is willing to use criticism to the utmost, he has so thor-
oughly and strikingly shown the impossibility of explain-
ing the appearance of Jesus after hisdeath differently from
the real manifestitions of his still living person. It is
well that Strauss, in his ''The Old Faith and the New,"
declares the history of the resurrection of Jesus a his-
torical humbug ; for it may open the eyes of many, if
the tendency, of which Strauss is leader, is no longer able
to explain Christianity — the noblest, purest, and most
successful religion which has come into existence in the
whole history of mankind — otherwise than by calling it
a humbug. With him who is pleased with this manner
of explaining the most perfect blossom and fruit of

338 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

the tree of mankind, we certainly can find no common
ground of mutual understanding.

We have been led to all these discussions, by look-
ing for something actual which should lie able to throw
its light hack upon the earliest primitive history of man-
kind — a history which can no longer be historically in-
vestigated. We have found this reality in the resurrec-
tion of Jesus ; and the light which it throws upoQ the
primitive history of man, we have perceived in the con-
clusion to which it leads us : that man, if he had taken
a sinless development, would also have been exempt from
deatli.

The resurrection of Jesus throws its light upon still
another* side of the Biblical doctrine of the primitive
condition of man ; namely, upon that which is the relig-
ious quintessence of the Biblical doctrine of Paradise.
As now the resurrection of the Lord is the beffinninir
and the prophecy of a new creation on the basis of the
old, and as we now hope, with St. Paul, that this begin-
ning shall manifest its comprehensive cosmic effects, when
the Lord shall manifest them in the resurrection of the
" children of God : " so, in case of a sinless development
of man, the beginning of this new and glorified stige
of creation would certainly have been perceptible at the
beginning of the history of mankind and in the relation
of man to his earthly surroundings. But we are of
course not permitted to make or to pursue such a sug-
gestion at present, since a sinful development of man-
kind, with its consequences, actually took place.

We have no reason to enter into the discussion of
another often and much debated question, which is con-
nected with the primitive history of man ; namely,

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 339

whether manJcmd is descended from one or more pairs of
7nen. We pass it by ; because it has no connection
whatever with the acceptance or rejection of the Dar-
winian ideas, and since it is not yet archaeologically
and scientifically solvable. Tliere are Darwinians who
think monogenetically, and others who think polygeneti-
cally; and there is still a third class — and they speak
most correctly — who acknowledge that they know
nothing about it. Besides, we can also pass by this ques-
tion, for the reason that in spite of the important place
which it occupies in the theological system of St. Paul,
we have no right to assign to it, in the form in which
we put it, the decisive dogmatic importance which it
still occupies in many conceptions of Christian theology.
For we cannot question the right of the natural sciences
to enter into the discussion of this question, and to look
for a solution of it. As soon as we make this conces-
sion, it necessarily and naturally follows from it, that we
must no longer make the substance and truth of our
religious possession, even in a subordinate manner,
dependent on the results of exact investigations: for our
religious possessions have too deep a basis of truth, to
permit us to ground them on the results of investiga-
tions in a realm so dark for science and so far removed
from religious interest. As to this question, we ma\'
hope for a future solution in the monogenetic sense: we
may rejoice over the fact that, according to the present
state of knowledge, the needle of the scale rather in-
clines in favor of a oneness of origin of mankind; but
we must also be prepared to accept the possibility of a
contrary result, without being afraid that in such a case
we should have to abandon at once that religious factor

340 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

for whose sake the advocates of a monogenetic descent
might defend their view. This religious (and, we may
add, quite as strong ethic) factor consists in the idea of
the intimate unity and brotherhood of mankind. We
must absolutely adhei'e to this idea ; for it is in opposi-
tion to the particularism which, guite without exception,
governed the entire old world, even its most highly
developed nations, and which was only penetrated by
some beams of hope and prediction in the prophecy of
Israel — ^^one of the most beautiful and blissful srifts of
Christianity to mankind. This idea still contains, as
ethical motive, one of the strongest, most indispensable,
and most promising forces in the world. If this idea
shall be a real and lastingly effective one, it certainly
must also have its real basis in the history of the origin
of mankind. But, we must ask, is the only conceivable
reality of this basis a monogenetic pedigree, and do we
lose this reality if science should once find that mankind
came into existence not only in one single pair, but in
several pairs, even in different places, and at different
times ? Even in such a case, the idea of the unity of
mankind would only lose its real basis, if at the same
time we were permitted to think also anti-teleologically
— if we were permitted to suppose that that which came
into existence, repeatedly, and in different places, had
each time entirely different causes without a common
aim and a common plan. If we think teleologically, we
see the unity of mankind, also in case of a pol vgenetic
origin, in the unity of the metaphysical and teleological
cause which called mankind into existence ; and to
rational beings, endowed with mind, as men are, the
metaphysical bond is certainly stronger than the physical.

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 341

Precisely the Darwinian ideas of the origin ot species
through descent would show us in such a case the real
bond which unites mankind. For then we should only
have to go back from the different points on the stem-
lines of the prehistoric generators of these primitive
men, at which men originated otherwise than by gener-
ation, in order to arrive finally at a common root of all
these stem-lines: the members of mankind would even
then remain consanguineous among one another, not
only in an ideal, but in a real sense.

Now that the idea of the unity of mankind was holy
and im|X)rtant to St. Paul, is to be inferred in advance
from such a universal mind. And when in Acts xvii,
26, he expresses this idea before the Athenians, so proud
of their autochthony, with the words that '^ of one blood
all nations of men dwell on all the face of the earth "; or
when, in Romans v, and 1 Corinthians xv, he makes use of
the idea in order to explain and to glorify the universal
power of redemption of Christ by putting Adam and
Christ in opposition to one another, as the first and the
second Adam, so that he sees sin and death coming forth
from Adam, grace and justice and life from Christ and
extending over mankind ; then we find this idea quite
convincing and natural, and adhere firmly to the quint-
essence of these truths, even if we acknowledge neither
in these passages, nor in Genesis i and ii, the intention
of God to give us a supernatural manifestation of the
exterior process of the creation of man. Paul himself
gives us a hint not to follow slavif^hly a literal interpre-
tation, when he says, in Romans v, "as by one man sin
entered into the world and death by sin," and calls this
man Adam, although he knows that according to the

342 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

Biblical relation, Eve was the one who was first
seduced, and although he expressly points out and
makes use of this priority of the sin of Eve in another
connection, and for another reason.

Finally, we may here also take into consideration the
contradictions which have come up by reason of more
recent investigations, in reference to the prehistoric
conditions of man^ and which, especially in England,
have been designated as the contradiction between the
elevation theory and the depravation theory.

In general, this contradiction is looked upon as if a
conception of the primitive history of man, remaining
conformable to the Bible, could only be brought into
harmony with a depravation theory, and not with an
elevation theory; but certainly without reason.

The Biblical and Christian conception of the primi-
tive history of man does not at all demand the concep-
tion of a gradual sinking down of mankind from a
supernatural height — of a gradual depravation of our
species — which many representations seem to assume.
For, according to it, the fall of man had already taken
place with the first pair of mankind; they were driven
from Paradise, to long hard labor and development; and
Paradise was taken from earth. Even the paradisaical
condition, with its short duration, was deficient in all
the various gifts of life which are a product of human
inventive faculty and skill, and which can leave behind
vestiges and remains. But what the Holy Scripture
relates or indicates of the after-paradisaical primitive
history of man, wholly corresponds to the idea of a grad-
ual development out of the more simple and rough,
which is demanded by the evolution theory in its appli-

POSITIVE CIlKIhTIANITY. 343

cation to history. That, even according to the Biblical
conception, goodness and progress in outer culture, sin
and intellectual stagnation, are not identical, we see from
the fact, that by the Holy Scripture the most successful
inventions of man are not assigned to the more pious
Sethites, but to the Titian-like, rebellious Kainites. Like-
wise, the evolution theory does not at all require a con-
stant, general, and exclusive progress of mankind in all
its members. As in the realm of irrational organisms,
so in the history of mankind ; it has to assume the most
various ramifications with progress, stand-still, and retro-
gradation. It is true, it sees in the nations of culture
progress in an upward rising line ; but besides, stand-
still and retrogradations in great variety. It also sees
in mankind in general a labor of upward rising develop-
ment ; but it also sees many hindrances of development,
and many shavings which the work throws to one side.
But exactly the same thing was also seen in every relig-
ious or profane contemplation of history, long before
the evolution theory was born.

Therefore, the different views of the earliest primitive
history of man, the theory of depravation and that of
elevation, do not stand so opposed to one another — the
former representing the Biblical and religious, the latter
the anti-religious, view of the history — but the question
as to the primitive history is not yet solved in that
respect ; the depravation theory, as well as the elevation
theory, indicates rather the directions in which investiga-
tion has to put its questions to the archaeological sources.
Investigation, on the other hand, has free scope in both
directions ; and the primitive history of man shows itself
to be a realm in which religious and scientific interest,

344 THE THEORIES OF DARWIX.

opponents and advocates of the descent theory, can
peacefully join hands for common labor. Up to the
present, the investigations i-each i-esults which seem to
fall now more into one, now more into the other, scale
of the balance. On the one hand, the older the products
of human skill are, the more simple they are ; on the
other hand, even the oldest remains show man in full
possession of that which distinguishes him from the
animal, and attests a spiritual life. The reader ma3'
think of the before mentioned sketches of the reindeer
and mammoth (page 90). If we finally come down to
historic times, and to the present, in order to try to draw
conclusions from the comparisons of the remotest times
of which we have historic knowledge, with the present,
as to prehistoric times, we likewise find on the one side
vestiges of the lowest barbarism in the past and present ;
but on the other side we find that the oldest written mon-
uments afford a glance into a perfection of intellectual
reflection and into a nobility of moral and i-cliorious views
which permits us to draw the highest conclusions as to
the intellectual worth of earliest mankind. The very
oldest records of the Holy Scriptui-e give evidence of
this intellectual height ; and even the royal programmes
of Assyrian monarchs, which the wonderful diligence
and ingenuity of recent investigators have deciphered
fix)ni the cuneiform inscriptions, not onl^' relatively cor-
respond, to the height of culture which we find in the
ruins of Assyrian palaces, but even, when looked upon
absolutely and aside from the morality of conquest which
they indulge, are inspired by a nobility of mind, and
permeated by a religiousness, which no potentate of
recent times would need to be ashamed of. They have

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 345

been made accessible to the public by the work of Eber-
liiird Schrader : '' Die Keilinscliriften und djis Alte Tes-
tament" (''Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testa-
ment"), Giessen, 1S72.

§ 4. Providence^ Hearing of Prayer, and Miracles,

Before we enter into the special christological realm,
we have yet to glance at the realm of the more common
relations between God and the creature, as they have
found, in faith in a divine providence, in hearing of
prayer, and in divine miracles, their reflection in Chris-
tian consciousness.

it is true, we had to discuss the chief basis of an
understanding in this matter when treating of the posi-
tion of the Darwinian theories in reference to theism in
general ; but we have a double reason for entering again
into the considemtion of the concrete form which this
faith has obtained in Christianity.

One reason is the fact, that faith in a special prov-
idence of God, in a hearing of prayer, and in a connec-
tion of the human history of salvation with miracles,
forms a very essential part of the Christian view of the
world and of Christian religiousness. All Holy Scrip-
ture is interwoven with assurances of a providence of
God, going even into details ; with the most distinct and
solenm promises of the hearing of our prayers ; and
with the most emphatic reference to the miracles which
it relates. The Lord himself not only found all these
doctrines, and left them untouched, but he developed
them in the most pregnant way, and brought them into
the most intimate connection with the quintessence and
centime of his doctrine. According to his teaching,

346 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

** a sparrow shall not fall to the ground without the will
of your heavenly Father ; but the very hairs of your
head are all numbered." He encourages us to pray,
with the words : '* Verily, verily, I say unto you. What-
soever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give
it you ; " and he proves himself to be the Redeemer,
through signs and wonders, and refers to the greatest
sign which was to be manifested in him — the sign of the
resurrection.

The other reason for entering upon the discussion of
these questions, lies in the incredible thoughtlessness
with which a great part of modern educated people,
even of such m^n as do not at all wish to abandon faith
in a living God, permit themselves to be governed by
the leaders of religious infidelity, and to be defiled and
robbed of everything, which belongs to the nature of
a living God. By many, it is considered as good taste,
and as an indispensable sign of deep scientific learning
and high education, and it forms a seldom contested part
of correspondence in newspapers, which have for their
public a wide circle of educated people, that in referring
to the inviolableness of the laws of nature they declare
faith in a special providence of God to be a view long
ago rejected, and which is only consistent with half-civil-
ized individuals ; that they look down with a compas-
sionate and self conscious smile upon the egoistic im-
plicit faith of congregations who still pray for good
harvest-weather, and see in the damage done by a hail-
storm a divine affliction ; that they criticise it as a sad
token of ecclesiastical darkness, when even church-
authorities order such prayers in case of vvide-spread
calamities; that they fall into a passion over the narrow-

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 347

ness and the dulling influence of pedagogues who see
in the histories which they relate to their pupils or put
into their hands for reading, the government of an
ethical order of the world which goes a little farther
than the rule that he who deceives injures his good
name, and he who gets intoxicated injures his health;
that they give a man who still believes in the resurrec-
tion of Jesus, to understand that he has not yet learned
the first elements of the theory of putrefaction and
perishableness. That the adversaries of faith in a God
thus express themselves, and try to conquer as much
ground as possible for their frosty doctrine, is certainly
quite natural; but that even advocates of theism should
permit such stuff to be i)resented to them, and can keep
silent in regard to it — nay, that even preachers offer it
to their congregations as ordinary Sabbath edification,
and that their hearers can gratefully accept it — is
cert;iinly a suggestive and alarming evidence of the
rapidity with which, in many men who still do not wish
consciously and certainly to be thought godless {i.e.^ to
be separated from God), their connection with the
source of light and life is decreasing, and of how
strongly the fear that they may be looked upon as
unscientific and imperfectly educated, overbalances the
fear of losing the living God and Father, and therewith
the support of both mind and life.

Now, that this faith in a special providence^ in a
hearing of prayer^ and in divine miracles^ forms an
essential part of Christian religiousness, we do not need
to show more in detail; it is an established historical
fact, and an object of direct Christian knowledge. On
the other hand, we have still to say a word c'oncerning

348 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

that which, on the part of those just described, is so
strongly contested; namely, about the scientific worth
of such a faith, and also about its reconcilableness with
the Darwinian theories.

In the first place, as to the faith in a special pro-
vidence of God^ and, in connection with it, as to the
possibility of a hearing of human prayer^ such a faith
is by itself the inevitable consequence of all theism;
nay, it is precisely identical with theism ; it is that
which makes theism theism^ and distinguishes it from
mere deism — i,e.^ from an idea of God, which merely
makes God the author of the world, and lets the world,
after it was once created, go its own way. Now, the
theistic idea of God, which sees the Creator in an un-
interrupted connection with his creation, is in itself the
more scientific one: for a God who, although the author
of the world, would not know how to find, nor intend
to find, a way of communication with his creation,
would certainly be an idea theologically inconceivable.
We should, therefore, still have to adhere to the idea of
a special providence of God, even if in our discursive rea-
soning and exact investigation of the processes in the
world we should not find a single guide referring us to
the scientific possibility of such a direct and uninterrupted
dependence of the world on its author. We should
then have simply to declare a conviction of the pro-
vidence of God to be a postulate of our reasoning,
which is given with the idea of God itself ; and would
just as little call this conviction unscientific on account
of the fact, that we are not able to show the modalities
of divine providence, as in reference to the exact
sciences we should contest the character of their scien-

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 349

tific value on account of tlie fact, that they are no
longer able to give us an answer exactly where our
questions become most iinporbuit and interesting.

But the ways in which we are able to realize scien-
tifically the idea of a divine providence are, indeed,
not entirely closed for us. We have several of them ;
one starts from the idea of God, others from the empiric
created world.

It belongs to the idea of God^ that we have to think
of the sublimity of God over time and space, of his
eternity and omnipresence, in such a way that God, in
his being, life, and activity, does not stand in time nor
within any limits or differences of space, but absolutely
above time and above all limits and differences of space;
that he is present in his world everywhere and at any
time. He who objects to this, can only do it with
weapons to which we have to oppose the objection which
the adversaries of the Christian idea of God so often
raise against it — namely, the objection of a rejectable
cmthropomorphKsm. In contesting the possibility of the
idea of an uninterrupted presence of a personal and
living God in the entire realm of the universe, the
adversaries seem to permit themselves to be daunted by
the difEcultv which is offered to man in controllinij the
realms of his own activity. The greater such a realm,
the more difficult becomes a comprehensive survey, the
more the human influence has to restrict itself to the
o^reater and more common and to neglect the little and
single. The more removed is the past which helps to
constitute the circumstances of the present, the greater
is the human ignorance and oblivion; the more removed
is the future, the greater is the human incapability of

350 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

influencing it decisively. Such measures ought to dis-
appear, even in their last traces, when we reflect on God
and divine activity. If once the idea is established for
us of a living God, who is always present in the world
created by him, and in whose " sight a thousand years
are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in
the night," the final causal chain of causes and eflfects
may be ever so long, and stretching over this course of
the world from its beginning to its end; the single
phenomena may be woven together of ever so many
thousands and thousands of millions of different causal
chains : we nevertheless see above them all the regu-
lating hand of God from whom they all come, and who
not only surveys and controls their texture in all its
threads, but who himself arranged, wove, and made it.
Such a view is not only more satisfactory to the religious
need of man, but it also seems to us more scientific,
than a view which traces everything back to a blind and
dead cause, or even to no ultimate cause at all, and
thinks it has entirely removed the last veil, if it pro-
nounces the great word ''causal law.''

Now, while our idea of God thus tells us that God
has in his hand all causal chains in the world, and its
million-threaded web in constant omni-surveying pres-
ence and in all-controlling omnipotence, our reflection on
the world and its substance and course also leads us
from the a posteriori starting-point of analytical investiga-
tion precisely to the same result ; it even leads us to a still
more concrete conception of this idea — namely, to the
result, that not only the causal clmins^ in their totality
and in their weh^ but also all single links of these chains.

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 351

have their force and existence only by virtue of a tran-
scendental, or what is^the same, of a tnetaphysical^ cause.

For if we analyze the single phenomena in the world,
we certainly observe in the activity of their qualities and
forces such a conformity to law, that, in our reflection
on these phenomena, we can go from one phenomenon
to the necessity of another as its cause or its eflfect, and
thus form those particular causal chains and causal nets
in whose arranged representation natural science consists.
But that those qualities and forces exist and act precisely
thus, and not otherwise, and why, we are no longer able
to explain. We can only say : the material and the
apparent is no longer their cause, but their eflfect ; there-
fore, the cause of that which comes into existence lies
beyond the phenomenon — ^. e,^ in the transcendental, in
the metaphysical.

This becomes evident in the inorganic world and in
those qualities which are common to all matter. Such
common qualities of the latter are, for instance, cohesion
and gravitation. That all matter has the quality of
cohesion, we can only say because we observe it; but
that it must be so, and why, we are not able to say.
This becomes still more evident in gravitation. Grav-
itation is so decidedly an action in space, that it appears
to us, together with cohesion, as precisely the bond
which binds the entire material world together. Each
single material atom is subject to its force ; but h©w and
why, and especially how and why matter acts upon the
matter in space^ physics can no longer tell us, but refers
us to a metaphysical cause.

This dependence of each single being, and of all its
qualities and forces, on a transcendental and metaphys-

352 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

ical cause of its existence, becomes most clear to us in
the world of the organic^ and especially in the trans-
mission and development of organisms. Tliat individ-
uals originate new individuals of their species ; thM the
fecundated germs, if the necessary conditions are pres-
ent, develop themselves out of the first germ and egg-
cell in continually progressive and distinct differentia-
tions, each after its kind, into the full-grown condition,
so that individuals endowed with a soul and intellectual
life ai*e also developed out of such beginnings ; — these
are facts which are continually repeated before our eyes,
and men of science have not vet reached the end in
pursuing the actual in these processes into its finest
ramifications. But how it is that individuals must trans-
mit themselves — that the seeds and e<r2rs rriust have this
force ot germination and development — they have not
yet been able to explain, and will never be able to do so.
The word *• inheritance," which is to solve the problem,
is only a name for the fdct which we observe, and for
the regularity of its repetition ; but for this fact of
inheritance itself, we seek in vain ^phjsical explanation :
we are referred to a metaphysical cause. Thus, not only
the first origin of life on earth is an enigma to us (as we
have seen in Part I, Book II, Chapter I, § 3), but organic
life itself, in its whole existence and course, is a pi-ocess
which, at every step, and in every place of its course,
remains to us in its last causes physically unexplained,
and refers us to metaphysical causes.

If we finallv see in all these inorj^anic and organic
processes a striving towards ends — and we must see it,
as soon as we in general observe order, the category of
higher and lower, and the api^earance of the higher on

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 353

the basis of the lower — we are, with all our teleological
observations, again referred to the metaphysical, and
still more decidedly to the goal-setting metaphysical ;
and a metaphysical which sets and reaches goals is
nothing else than that in philosophic language which in
the language of religion we call a living Creator and
Rvler of the world and the activity of his providence.
From still another side, the knowledge of the world,
even in a scientific way, leads us to the acknowledgment
of a divine providence which controls with absolute free-
dom every process in every place and in every moment
of the world's course. We see continually, in the midst
of nature, and in its causal course conformable to law,
something supernatural, transcendental, and metaphys-
ical, acting decisively upon the course of nature ; and
that is the free dctivity of man. Every man carries in
the freedom of the determinations of his will something
ti'anscendental and metaphysical in himself, which we
can call natural only when we mean by nature the sum-
mary of all that which exists, but which we have to call
supernatural when we mean by nature the summary of
that which belongs to the world of phenomena in its
traceable causes as well as in its traceable effects.
The scale of life - activities, from the lowest arbi-
trary motions, from the impulses and instincts of tho
animal up to the highest moral action of the will cf
man, shows us in indistinct transitions all stages
which lead from the natural to the supernatural, until,
in the ethical and religious motives of man, we arrive
at supcrphysical {i. ^., supernatural) motives \vhich
daily and hourly invade the natural, and in this invasion
consciously and unconsciously use the forces of natino

23

354 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

and their activity, conformable to law, and in spite of
their metaphysical and transcendental origin, from the
moment of their activity, join the natural causal connec-
tion of the world's course. This olh^ervation of an inva-
sion of the physical by the supernatural, as it continually
takes place in the free action of man, leads us in a triple
way to the acknowledgment of an action of divine prov-
idence upon the course of the world.

In the first place", this observation shows us, in a very
direct way, points where the free disposition of Grod acts
deteniiinatingly upon the course of things, and where
this action becomes accessible to our observation. These
points are the human personalities, in so far and inas-
much as they permit themselves to be influenced and
determined by the will of God in the ethical and religious
motives of their action, and, when these motives become
actions, determinately act upon the coui*se of things.

In the second place, this observation further leads,
by way of two conclusions, to the acknowledgment of a
divine providence

One conclusion is the following : If there exist in the
world free and intelligent beings which, through their
free determinations, guided by reflection, decisively act
upon the course of nature, and if these beings, on
account of these very qualities of freedom and intelli-
gence, occupy the highest stage among the ci'eatures
which we know, the last metaphysiciil cause of their exis-
tence must also have qualities which are able to produce
such free and intelligent beings — at least the qualities of
freedom and intelligence in the highest degree. And
this highest metaphysical cause which produces free and
intelligent personalities in the world, can at least be no

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 355

more dependent upon the entire world, whose author it
is, than those personalities are dependent upon that
realm in the world in which they have their existence.
We call such a metaphysical cause, to which we have to
ascribe freedom and intelligence in the highest degree,
God; and we call its free position in reference to the
world, the government of the world, or providence.

The other conclusion leads us to the acknowledojment
of a connection of providence with conformability to law
in the actions of all forces and qualities in the world. It
is the same conclusion to which we had to refer in Chap.
I, § 6, but which now, as we draw from theism the coiu
elusion of the acknowledgment of a special divine
providence, falls with increased weight into the scale.
It is the following: On the one hand, we observe in
the processes of the world a striving towards ends ; on
the other, we know in the world itself only one single
creature which acts according to aims, which set.s itself
its ends and reaches them with freely chosen means.
This one creature is man. Now man can, as we pointed
out in Chap. I, § 6, choose and use the means with which
he wishes to reach his ends, only because he can rely on
the conformity to the end in view and the regularity in
the effect of all the qualities and forces of things. If
he could not rely on them, he certainly could set him-
self ends ; but the reaching of them he would have to
leave to the play of chance. Now if we see, on the one
side, that the only creature known to us which sets itself
ends is able to reach these ends by virtue of inviolable
conformity to law in the forces and effects of its means,
and if we see, on the other, that in the course of the
world ends are also reached, and that at the same time

356 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

all secondary causes which lead to these ends act with a
necessity conformable to law, we certainly are right in
drawing the conclusion that the highest metaphysical
cause of all things — we now say, the living God — has
so prepared the whole universe that his free but regular
and systematic goal-setting and end-reaching action upon
the course of all things rests, as a whole as well as in de-
tail, directly upon the conformity to law of all forces and
their effects.

The observation of a free action of the human per-
sonality ujK)n the coui'se of things, once more leads us
back to a reflection on the idea of God, For if we have
reason to acknowledge a freedom of the determinations
of human will — and the consciousness of ethical responsi-
bility will be a proof of this freedom which cannot be
invalidated by any contrary reflection — the question
comes up : hmo is this freedom of a creature reconcile
able with the idea of God? Far be it from us to chiira
to have found a solution of these last and most impor-
tant problems of the human mind. For all meditations
on them but lead to antinomies in the presence of which
we dare not claim to remove all difficulties of reflec-
tion still less to solve the difficulties by pursuing
only one chain of reasoning and ignoring the other.
The way of science leads rather to mere comjrromlses^
and these compromises consist in the fact, that on every
side of our observations or arguments we look for and
adhere to that which results for us in incontestable fact
or indispensable postulate, and that we adhere to all
results or postulates thus found even when we are no
longer able to trace their unity and harmony back to
their last sources. Now if, on the one hand, our idea of

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 357

God is established as a self-testimony of God to our ethi-
cal consciousness and as a result of our teleological
reasoning, and if, on the other, is established the fact
of the world and of its processes going on conformably
to law, and likewise the fact of human freedom and its
actions upon the coui-se of things, and finally the fact of
the admission of the human will and action into a higher
teleology which is superior to human will, and which, in
the history of mankind, of individuals, and nations,
reaches its higher ends, now by affirming, now by deny-
ing, human will ; then we have simply to account for all
these facts as mere facU^ and the scientific attempt at
pui^suing them into their inner connection is nothing else
but a more or less successful compromise. We have to
be satisfied with these indications, for the further discus-
sion of them would lead us far beyond the task of the
present publication. We shall only point out the fact,
that precisely the knowledge of the image of God in
man shows us the way to the knowledge of how it is
conceivable that God can create )iersonalities through
whose freedom of will he relatively limits the absolute-
ness of his own will.

In all our discussions hitherto, the sci entific basis of
a faith in the possibility of an ans^oer to prayer has been
evident. All reasons for a divine providence, also speak
with the same force of persuasion for the hearing of our
pra3'^ers, as soon*as the idea of being a child of God has
become an integral part of our idea of God. And this
idea — the idea of God as the father, and of a relation-
ship of love between the divine and the human person-
alities — is so much a part of the Christian idea of God,
that it belongs to its very essence. Only one considera-

358 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

tion might offer sciontific difficulties to our faith in the
hearing of prayer : namely, if God hears the prayere of
his children, in the course of time new motives for his
action present themselves to him ; now, is it reconcilable
with the idea of God, that God makes himself in any
such way dependent on that which first appeared in time,
and on the changing moods of the creature ? But this
difficulty is precisely the same which we met, when
acknowledging human freedom and its reconcilableness
with a divine providence ; and we have tried to indicate
Above the path which leads to its solution.

It is the principal idea which penetrates all our
reasoning about the relation of God and the world—
namely, the idea of a teleology in the world — which is to
lead us to a correct conception of the miracles and their
reconcilableness with a mechanism of nature and with
the Darwinistic ideas of development. In the much
discussed contest about the problem of miracles, clearer
results would certainly have been attained, if one had
questioned more closely what the record of the Christian
religion means by miracles, and what position, according
to it, these miracles have to take in the order of the
world and in the divine plan of salvation; and after
having satisfied himself as to this position, had further
asked what position they take in reference to our exact
science and our theistic view of the world. Instead of
doing this, we have often enough seen friend and foe of
the idea of miracles, as soon as the question was even
touched upon, at once set to work with the insufficient
conceptions of old rationalism and supematuralism, and
thus raising objections and attempting solutions which
could satisfy nobody. Especially every inadequate idea

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 359

which was put forth by the advocates of faith in
miracles, wjis ghidly accepted by its adversaries ; for
thereby they were furnished with a caricature of the
idea of miracles, the tearing to pieces of which was an
easy and agreeable sport to them.

The very ideas of the natural and the supernatural
are a category which is to ]>e treated with caution.
When discussing the question of divine providence, we
have seen that, with every free act of the will of man
springing from an ethical motive, something super-
natural invades the natural, so that in every normal
human life we always see supernatural and natural by
the side of and in one another.

The distinction between the direct and the indirect
action or invasion of God is also to be used with great
caution and restriction. For where we are no longer
able to find secondary causes, who can assert that God no
longer uses any ? Where the realm of visible causes
ceases and that of the invisible begins, who can exclude
secondary causes ? And on the other hand, where God
acts, directly, who can deny the concurrence of his direct
presence and his direct action, or reduce the value of
that which was indirectly produced ?

Moreover, the often-returning conceptions of a
breaking of the laws of nature^ or the compromises
which were made between a breaking and a non-break-
ing of the laws of nature by assuming a "supernatural
acceleration of the process of nature," were still more
misleading. In the whole world, infinitely many higher
and lower forces act according to laws and order. In
every process, a part of the forces which in the single
case surround it, become active, and thereby hinder

360 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

another part from its activity. But the laws of this
other part of forces are^ not thereby invalidated or
broken. When a man acts with moral freedom, from
mere moral motives, the highest of the conceivable
forces over which we have control comes into direct
action upon the natund. But therewith those forces,
with their laws, which would have been active if another
motive had determined him, are not yet overcome, but
only hindered from their activity in exactly the same
wa}' as one part of forces can be active and another not,
where mere mechanical actions take place. Thus, in
minicles, no law of nature is overcome, but only a force
which otherwise would have been active according to the
law of its activity, is for the time hindered from action
by another force becoming active. Moreover, through
the conscious and unconscious connection of the idea of
irregularity and lack of plan with the idea of miracles,
not only the idea of a God who works miracles, but also
that of a personal Creator and Ruler of the world, in
general, has come into discredit. For that reason,
Hackel, for instance, when he attacks the Christian idea
of creation, never fails to speak of the '^capricious
aibitrariness" of a Creator; and Oskar Schmidt also
speaks of the " caprice" of the God of Christians.

\\ ith these criticisms, which we have made in refer-
ence to the treatment of the question of miracles, we
certainly have undertaken only to characterize the
superficial skirmishing which took place between the
two opposing views of the world, but not the labors
of more recent theological science. But that skir-
mish has made, like all superficiality, the most noise
in the world; and since the adversaries of the faith in

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 361

miracles endeavored almost exclusively to reflect in this
manner, and almost ignored the dcc[)er deductions
of theological science, they succeeded in making the
idea of miracles almost the most dreaded object of anti-
pathy to modem education, and many, of those who feel
that the conceptions of traditional dogmatics are in need
of revision, and religion and science of a reconciliation,
endeavor to find that revision and reconciliation esi>ecial-
ly in the fact, that religion gives up miracles. On the
other hand, theology as science^ in its main advocates,
lotig ago gave up these insuflScient and misleading cate-
gories and conceptions, and established a conception of
miracles w^hich can easily be received into the science of
the processes of nature, as well as into our reasoning
about God and the divine. The first who adopted this
mode of treatment, is one of the pioneers of more recent
positive theology, and of a theology still uninfluenced
by science — Karl Immanuel Nitzsch. It is certainl}^
interesting to read what this man, as early as 1829, said,
in the first edition of his "System der Christlichen
Lehre " (''System of Christian Doctrine"), and also in the
succeeding edition printed without alteration. He says,
on page 64: "The miracles of revelation are, in spite of
all objective supematuralness, derived from their central
origin, something really conformable to laxo : partly in
relation to the higher order of things to which they
belong and which is also a world, a nature in its kind,
and acts upon the lower in its way; partly in reference
to the similarity to common nature which they retain in
any way; partly on account of their teleological perfec-
tion; and they must not only be expected as the homo-
geneous phenomenon from the inner miracle of redemp-

362 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

tion, from the stiindpoint of perfect Christian fjiith, but
also by virtue of the union between spirit and nature,
be looked upon as the natiwcU in its klnd.^^ In these
words we find the fruitful germs of a sound dogmatic
development which the idea of miracles has found on
the part of more recent theology.

Let us, in the first place, try to keep free from all
preconceived, correct or incorrect, opinions, and ask how
the miracles appear to us, when they present themselves
with a claim to acknowledgment as integral parts of a
divine revelation of salvation, namely, in the religion of
redemption and its record. In regard to their name,
they appear to us in the Holy Scriptures as amazing
bright processes, as great deeds and signs; and in regard
to their nature, as signs which are destined to call Ihe
attention of man to the government in grace and in judg-
ment of a living God, to the salvation of redemption
which God gives to man, and to the human instruments
which he uses for that purpose. Now, in a view of the
world which, like the Biblical, so decidedly sees a revela-
tion of God in all that which takes place, in a view of the
world to which everything natural has also, as a work of
God, its supernatural cause, and everything supernatural,
at present or in the future, is transposed again into nature
and history, not only all those above rejected conceptions
of miracles lose their sisrnificance, but all remainins: con-
ceptions with which one otherwise tries to distinguish the
miracles from all that is not miraculous, or to classify the
different species of miracles, also diminish in importance,
as do also all those distinctions of direct and indirect
actions of God — the distinctions of relative and abso-
lute, of subjective and objective miracles: and there

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 36S

remains but a single inviolable kernel and central point
of the Biblical conception of miracles, and that is the
above mentioned tdeological character of miracles. In-
deed, we are not willing to reject all these logical distinc-
tions and investigations as worthless: they have helped
to render clear our conceptions and ideas, and they still
help. But a deeper investigation of the idea of miracles
and its relation to a scientific knowledge of the world
may perhaps finally lead our more developed reflection
back to the fact that we find the quintessence and the
nature of miracles only where the pious people of the
Bible found it. And this quintessence of miracles con-
sists precisely in their ideological nature^ and not at all in
the fact that they cannot be explained physically : it con-
sists in tiie fact that miracles are signs through which
God manifests himself and his government over man,
and actually shows the latter that he wishes to bring him
to the pursuit of perfection by the way of redemption.
Ritschl, in an essay which appeared in the " Jahrbiicher
fiir Deutsche Theologie," as early as 1861, pointed out
this decidedly teleological character of Biblical miracles
and the indifference shown by pious men in the Bible as
to the question whether these deeds and signs can be ex-
plained naturally or not.

The profit which we derive from this reverting to the
Biblical conception of the idea of miracles is by no means
small.

In the first place, we help to establish the full recog-
nition of that direct religious consciousness and sensation
which is not only characteristic of the pious men of Scrip-
ture, but which yet characterizes all genuine religiousness;
and this consists in the fact that the religious man sees

864 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

miracles of God in aU that turns his attention to God)%
government^ — in the sea of stars, in rock and bush, in
sunshine and storm, in flower and worm, just as certainly
as in the guidance of his own life and in the facts and pro-
cesses of the history of salvation and of the kingdom of
the Loixl. In this idea of miracles, the essential thing is
not that the phenomena and processes are inconceivable
to him — although certainly in all that comes into appear-
ance there is still an incomprehensible and uncomprehend-
ed remainder. For a form of nature, e, y., which turns
his attention to a creator, is of course a miracle, even if
he is able to look upon it with none other eye than that
of the unlearncHi : but it even then remains a miracle, —
nay, it is increased to a still greater miracle, if he has
learned to contemplate and investigate it with all the
awxilijiry means of science. A hearing of his prayers
reiiiiiins a miracle, whether or not he is able to perceive
the natural connection of the process in which he sees his
prayers answered, or even to trace it back to the remotest
times which preceded his prayers. The events and facts
of the history of salvation remain miracles to him,
whether the history of nature and the world offers to
him auxiliary means of explaining them or not. The
pious man, therefore, docs not find the essential character-
istic of miracles in their relative inconccivableness, but
in the fact that they refer him to a living God who stands
above this process, whether perceived or unperceived in
its relative causal connection, and unites it with the coui'se
of things in order to reach his ends and to manifest him-
self to man. Now, in our attempt at a scientific repro-
duction of the idea of miracles, if we return to that
Biblical conceptioti, we see no longer in this just men-

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 365

tioned religious conception of miracles a pious sophistry
which avoids the difficulty of the idea, or a child-like
naivete worthy of being partly envied and partly pitied,
which does not at all see the difficulties and remains on
the child-stage of Biblical conceptions ; but we only per-
ceive in it a confirmation and fulfilment of that profound
and beneficent word of our Lord: '•Verily I say unto
you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God
as a little child, he shall not enter therein." Of course,
piety as well as science makes distinctions among miracles.
The former separates the niere products and processes of
nature which, through what is explicable as well as what
is inexplicable in their qualities and processes, point to an
almighty and all-wise Creator, and thereby become mir-
acles to the religious view of the world, from the histor-
ical events which, by their newness and uniqueness, and
by their pointing toward divine ends, manifest God and
his teleological government to man, and calls them mir-
acles in a still more specific sense than science does.
And among historical events, piety as well as science
assigns the name miracle, in the most pregnant sense, to
those events which belong to the history of salvation^
and, by their newness and uniqueness, introduce new
stages into it, render legitimate its new instnunents, or
bring new features of redemption to our knowledge.
Our religiousness has the greatest and deepest interest in
this history : for it is the history of the leading back of
irian into communion with God by the way of redemp-
tion ; and therefore the events of this history are pre-
cisely those miracles upon which our deepest religious
interest is concentrated. But in spite of all these dis-
tinctions in degree, that natural relationship and that

366 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

common character of the miraculous between the mira-
cles of nature, the miracles of the history of man, and
the miracles of the history of salvation, remain estab-
lished ; and we render a service to religious conscious-
ness, as well as to the scientific conception of the idea
of miracles, if by returning to the Biblical idea of mira-
cles, as we propose, we make a more comprehensive
definition of miracles possible.

Another advantage which we derive from returning
to the Biblical idea of miracles consists in the fact that
it preserves us from the magical and necromantic in our
conceptions of miracles ; that it allows us a grouping of
miracles according to value^ which corresponds with the
idea of God and of the divine government as well as
with the idea of miracles itself; and that in the presence
of all single relations of miracles it summons us to crit-
icise and investigate the real state of the case. For the
nature of miracles does not consist in the inconceivable
— at least not in the planless and arbitrary, — but in the
fact that they call the attention of man to God and his
government ; and this leads to the reverse of all that is
magical and necromantic, because the magical is
unworthy of the idea of God and contradicts all the
other self-testimony of God. Now if the nature of
miracles consists in the fact that they call my attention
to God and his government, an event will become a
miracle to me, and increase its value, in the degree in
which it refers me to God and his government, and
especially in the degree in which it refers me to that
government of God which is the most important to me
— ^namely, to the action of God in me and mankind,
with which he is bringing about his ends in salvation ;

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 367

but in the degi'ee in which an event loses this character,
it becomes to me an event without miraculous or .relig-
ious significance. This gives a quite definite grouping
of miracles according to value, from those which belong
to the central manifestations of the divine plan of salva-
tion and way of redemption, to those which lie in the
extreme periphery of religious interest. It is a group-
ing which corresponds with the idea of God just as much
as with the idea of miracles ; while all other divisions or
groupings of miracles according to value, which might
take their principle of division and their weight from
the greater or smaller conceivableness of the causal con-
nection, from the greater or smaller difference of a
miraculous event from all other events, are indifferent
in reference to the idea of God, and change the centre
of gravity in the idea of miracles. Besides, if these
miracles are to be real signs to me which refer me to
God, his government, and his ways of salvation, they
must, in the first place, in order to secure ni}' conviction,
be real events and facts and not mere falsifications and
fictions ; and this point leads us to the duty and right
of criticisino: and investio^atinix actual circumstances.
In presence of all Biblical and non-Biblical miracles, we
have the full right and the full duty of using criticism in
reference to the confirmation ot* actual circumstances,
and where the latter cannot be established with cer-
tainty, the question is in order whether the related event
is really of such a character as to legitimate itself as a
sign of God and his government. In the preceding
section, we have had occasion to use this principle in
reference to the investigation of that event which, next
to the coming of the Redeemer, offers itself to us as the

368 THE THEORIES OF DARWiy.

central miracle of the history of salvation and redemp-
tion : namely, in reference to the history of the resurrec-
tion of the Lord.

We have by no means the wish to avoid difficulties
which meet us, when trying to bring miracles, and
especially the specific and pregnant miracles of the his-
tory of salvation, into harmony with our scientific
knowledge of the world : only we can no longer admit
that these difficulties consist in the inconceivableness or
in the supematuralism of miracles. For to the religious
view of the world — which traces equally the explicable
as well as the inexplicable back to God, which even
derives the natural from the supernatural causality of
God — neither the occasional inexplicability nor the sup-
posed supernaturalness of an event can be that which
makes the event a miracle. But an event in the history
of salvation becomes a miracle from the fact that some-
thing €xtraordi7iary^ something new^ happens in it which
by its newness and its extraordinary character presents
itself to man as the manifestation of certain divine ends
in salvation^ and can be explained at first sight, but only
at first sight from nothing else than from the service
which it renders to the plan of redemption. AVhether
afterwards these extraordinary and new features can or
cannot be jierceived in their natural connection, or
explained out of it, does not at all change anything in
the miraculous character of the event, as soon as it has
once had the before-mentioned effect The only task and
the only difficulty which meets us in the question of
miracles, is to show that such extraordinary and new
things really happen, and to bring the reality and possi-
bility of such new things into our perception of the

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 369

causal connection of the coui*se of the world, conform-
able to law. But it ceases to be a difficulty, so soon as we
acknowledge a teleology in the course of the world and
a teleology in the history of mankind, and especially as
soon as we acknowledge that teleology in the history of
mankind which, by the way of the divine means of
redemption, leads man back to God. Where theca are no
ends, nothing can happen which calls the attention of men
to these ends ; nor, indeed, can anything new happen ;
for nothing prevails in more absolute sovereignty to all
eternity than the maxims caysacequat effectum and effectus
' (Bquat cmtsa/m. But where ends are appointed and reached,
something new also happens ; and every new thing refers
to its end. For each step leading nearer such an end is
something new, and refers, as soon as we compare it with
preceding steps, to the end towards which it strives.
All ends to which the course of things refers us,
are to the religious view of the world ends which are
appointed by God ; all means which serve to reach the
ends, are means which God created and chose; and every
phenomenon and every event which manifests this teleo-
logical government of God to our mind, is a miracle to
us. Now this whole course of tlie world is interwoven
with such new things, in events which manifest to us,
now more clearly, now more dimly, the striving of the
course of the world towards an end, because the latter
is really striving towards an end. Even prehistoric times
show us new thin2:s which, from a scientific and histori-
cal point of view, we have to place in the line of the
course of the world; and from a religious point of view,
in the line of miracles. The first appearance of organic
life on earth' waa new, and indicated new ends; the first

370 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

appearance of each single species of animals and plants
was new; new, also, and indicating the highest end of
creative life, was the first appearance of man. All
these things we call mira'Cles of creation ; and we espe-
cially place the creative miracle of the appearance of
man on a level with the greatest miracles of which we
have knowledge, and use the name miracle for all before
mentioned newly appearing formations, whether or not
we are able to explain those originations from the
preceding connection of the course of nature and its
forces. Now, in the history of mankind, where the
intellectual and ethical motives of that which happens
become active, where also the greatest ends which come
up for consideration are spiritual and ethical ends,
where man himself acts freely according to ends, and
where, therefore, human and divine teleology come
alternately into play, the manifestation of a striving
toward an end, in which religious consciousness imme-
diately sees also ends and means of God, is repeated in
an eminent degree. Every event which brings about a
progress in the history of mankind as well as of indi-
viduals, is as to this side something new, extraordinary,
teleological: i.e.^ a miracle to the religious mode of con-
templation; and this miracle is the greater as is more
important the end under consideration, and the greater
and the more decisive the step towards this end which
the event accomplishes. Now, if we recognize the
return of mankind into a communion with God as the
highest goal of the general and individual history of
mankind, and if we find in the latter facts which lead to
this goal, then these facts are the great central miracles
of history. As such, the facts of redemption present

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 371

themseWes with all that for which it once prepared the
way; and, now that it has come, leads to full and
complete perfection — and among them all, the coming,
the person, and the history of Jesus Christ, stands as
central fact and central miracle in the midst of all
events in the history of salvation, and forms the central
point of all religious interest. We see how unjust it is
when one urges, as an objection to a belief in miracles,
that it assigns to God arbitrary and capricious actions.
We call the manifestations of divine teleology miracles.
But striving towards an end and conformity to a regular
plan is not arbitrariness or caprice, but the contrary; and
the greater our estimate of the highest cause of all things,
the greater will appear to us the conformity to a plan
and to law of all which presents itself as miracles in the
course of events. There is perhaps one objection
which is about as equally unjust as the objection of
caprice; and that is the objection that faith in miracles,
in teaching a belief in supernatural things, tends to
introduce into the course of events somethin2: which is
against nature. But since miracles, as a sign of divine
teleology, manifest ends for which nature also is pre-
pared, and through which the fallen nature of man,
fallen by sin, is again restored; and since to the religious
view of the world all natural phenomena and processes
expressly rank among miracles, the faith in miracles
teaches the contrary of an opposition to i>ature. It is
incontestible — and will become still clearer and more
certain to us through all farther investigation of the
subject — that the acknowledgment of the idea of mira-
cles as a necessary and a justified part of religiousness

372 THE TttEOaiES OF DARWIN.

stands and fulls with the acknowledgm^it of a teleo-
logical view of the world.

We certainly do not indulge in the foolish hope that
with the. deductions of this section we should be able
suddenly to win over any of the decided adversaries of
faith in providence and miracles. For, as we have had
occasion to remind the reader, the acknowledgment or
the non-acknowledgment of God and his living govern-
ment in the world is not the result of this or that
reflection and chain of conclusions, but rather an
ethical action of the centre of human pei-sonality in
which God discovers himself in his self-manifestation.
Now, if this centre, in the freedom of its decision, has
once denied the acknowledgment of God and his
government, then the intellectual actions of the soul
ofler themselves to this atheistic and anti-theistic stand-
point, and build up atheistic systems in which the ideas
of providence and miracles naturally find no place.
Thus system is opposed to system, although the one is
not able to overcome the other. For the last and deep-
est power of conviction lies, neither for one nor the
other system, in its chains of conclusions, in itssui>er-
structure, but in its foundation, its standpoint, and its
principles; and the choosing of one or the other stand-
point, the tlieistic or atheistic, is an ethical action which
precedes methodical reasoning — or if it takes place at
the same time or precedes it, has still deeper motives
than those of more or less clear forms of mere reason-
ing. But we believe, and we wish and hope in our
modest way to have shown by our present investigation,
that the standpoint of faith also has its logical and
justified science, and that it is able to appreciate the

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 578

world of the real more universally and candMly, attd
offers to logical reasoning fewer and less importattt
difficulties, than the systems of atheism.

We have now discussed all the essential and direct,
points of contiicts between Christianity and the theory
of evolution. But a remaining part, still more closely
related to the centre of the Christian view of the world,
yet offers some indirect points of contact which demand
treatment.

§ 5. Tlie Redeemer and the Redemption, The Kingdom
of God and the Acceptance of Salvation,

As soon as it is once an established fact that an evo-
lution theory of the origin of man as a merely scientific
theory permits all the valuable qualities of man, when
they have once come into existence, to show themselves
undiminished in their entire greatness and imjiortance,
and must so permit them, then the whole Christian view
of the world, of the Redeemer, his person, his coiu'se of
redemption, and his work, remains entirely untouched by
all these scientific theories iof evolution. Yet the Bibli-
ctd representation, the orthodox perception, and the
actual history of the Redeemer and his work, present
us with some evidences which are rather in sympathy
than in antipathy with these scientific theories. First,
the long preparation for his birth, which began immedi-
ately after the fall of man and stretched over at least
four thousand years, perhaps over a much longer period,
the special preparation of his human genealogy, the
Selection, separation, and guidance of the ancestor and
of the people of Israel, of the tribe, the family, and
finally of the mother of Jesus — all these are manifestly

374 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

just as favorable to the idea of evolution as they would
have been to the idea of a sudden creation of man out of
nothing, if Christ, the second Adam, had come into exis-
tence by a sudden creation. Moreover, the Redeemer
himself was wholly subject to the ordinary laws of de-
velopment of the human individual, and was, from his
annunciation and conception, developed entirely like
man in the long process of evolution from the egg and its
still absolutely indifferent spiritual worth through all the
imperceptible stages of development before and after the
birth up to the full age of man. Likewise the result of
his course of salvation, i^jdemption, and entrance into the
kingdom of God, underwent the same process of gradual
development. It began with a few disciples, and was
slowly propagated; it has to-day reached but a small part
of mankind, and even where it took root, it sees infinitely
many things by its side which it has not j'et been able to
penetrate with its leaven : — facts which have much more
elective affinity with the scientific ideas of development
than with those of sudden creations.

Finally, precisely the same analogy forces itself upon
us in the Christian doctrine of the way of salvation.
The work of the Holy Spirit in the human individual is
nothing less than a new birth ; its aim is the revival of
the entire man, in mind, soul, and body. In most men,
this work takes place by a slow process, advancing step
by step. This gradual course is even the rule in Chris-
tianized nations ; although a decisive change of mind
often enough, though by no means always, takes place
in marked epochs of the inner history of life. And in
all Christians — even in those whose conversion takes
place by a sudden awakening, like that of Paul — the

ix)snivfc: cHUisTfANiTY. 375

transformation of the entire man into the similarity of
Christ, and the full restoration of the image of God, is
certainly a process of development, and must await its
completion in the resurrection. This view .is also con-
firmed by the Lord's parable of the seed, growing up
imperceptibly.

Every believing Christian knows these facts, and
judges and acts according to them : therefore, when in
the realm of nature, which God certainly submitted to
the free investigation of the human mind, he meets simi-
lar views, what right has he to protest against them as
being hostile to religion?

§ 6. Eschatology.

In our discussion of the preceding questions, we have
seen that an entirely neutral, not to say friendly, relation-
ship is taking place between religion and the theories of
development, which will continue so long as the latter
keep within the limits of their proper realm, the percep-
tion of nature ; and that a hostile relation takes place,
and anti-religious attacks are to be guarded against, only
when a disbelieying system of metaphysics, which has
grown on other ground, in an uncalled-for way, tries to
connect itself closely with the theory of descent. This
is in an eminent deo^ree the case with the ii^reat eschat-
©logical hopes of Christianity. The evolution theory so
exclusively contents itself with the attempts at perceiv-
ing the causal circumstances of organisms in the present
world, that it does not at all wish to, and cannot, express
itself concerning the end and goal of the world and the
laws and circumstances which may reign \xi2i future ceon^
and that it gives free scope to every perception of the
ultimate which miirht come from another source.

37G THE TIIEOKIES OF DAKWIN.

On the other hand. Christian eschatology is alone
able to do most essential service to the evolution theory,
in case it sliould be verified, by giving an answer to
questions to which the evolution theory tends more
decidedly than any other scientific theorj'' — namely, to
the que^itions as to the end of the world and mankind^
with such distinctions as no philosophy which treats of
the doctrines of nature, is able to give, although natu-
ral science itself demands the answer to these questions
the more peremptorily, the higher the points of view
are to which it leads us.

The world shovvs to every investigating Qye a devel-
opment, whether we have to take this development as
descent or as successive new ci'eation ; and therefore we
shall take, in the following discussion, the idea of devel-
opment in this broad sense which comprises all conceiv-
able attempts at explanation. All nature — its mo3t compre-
hensive cosmic realms as well as the realms of its small-
est organisms — together with, the corporeal, psychical,
and spiritual nature of man, shows a harmony^ a conform-
ity to the end in vieiv^ and a striving tov)ard an end of
its development, the denial of which will certainly not
add to the laurels which transmit the scientific fame of
our present generation to posterity. Now, what is this
end? The answer which we receive from those who
reject Christian eschatolos^y, may be given by two scien-
tific antipodes : by Strauss and Eduard von Hartmann.
Strauss takes sides with those who reject all striving
toward an end in nature ; and his answer to the question
(which still asserts itself in his system of the world), is :
eternal circular motion of the universe, death of all
individuals and of all complexes of individuals, even of

POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 377

mankind. Eduard von Hartmann, on the other hand,
is filled by the knowledge of the teleolosjical, but he
rejects the hope of Christians, and the end which offers
itself to him in the place of the rejected end of Chris-
tian hope, is destruction — destruction of all individuals
and destruction of the world. In view of such ends, is
not the Christian's hope tJie answer which not only satis-
fies the deepest ethical and religious need, but also all
heights and depths of the most faithful, most devoted,
and most enlightened investigation of nature?

Finally, we have still another eschatological conclu-
sion to mention and reject ; a conclusion which is drawn
from this theory by the advocates of the evolution the-
ory. It opens the perspective into a future development
of still higher beings out of man. In abstracto, we can
naturally make no objection to the possibility of such a
development, as soon as we once accept the evolution
theory ; but we have to object to the supposition of such
a process in infinitum. For such a process would cer-
tainly be interrupted by the final destruction of the
globe ; and in case the mechimico-naturalistic view of
the world should be right, this destruction would be only
the more cruel as would be more highly organized the
beings which should find their destruction in this inevi-
table catastrophe. Moreover, as we have repeatedly
seen, a development in infinitmn suffers from a self-con-
tradiction : for development involves an end, and this
end must certainly have been once reached. Now, if we
have reason to assume that this end has been reached in
the development of the inhabitants of the globe, by the
creature being in the image of God and his child, and
that it is also reached in fallen man through redemption

378 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

and its i")erfection, then the idea of development, it is
true, allows and postulates a relative development of
mankind, so long as this takes place within the limits
of the now valid laws of the universe, — a development
towards the perfection of this likeness to God and filial
relationship ; but that idea of development has no longer
an influence that would lead to the production of new
beings which should be more than man.

With the foregoing, we believe that we have dis-
cussed all essential points of the relation between relig-
ion and Darwinism ; and we now nroeeed to the last part
of our investigation.

DARWINISM AND MORAL PRINCIPLES. 379

B. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND

MORALITY.

CHAPTER III.
DARWINISM AND MORAL PRINCIPLES.

§1. Darwinistic Nataraliam and Moral Principles,^

If we consider the ethical consequences of a view of
the world which, proceeding from Darwinism, permits
the universe, man included, to be taken up into a mech-
anism of atoms — a mechanism in which everything,
even the ethical action of man, finds its sufficient expla-
nation — ^we certainly cannot perceive how such a view of
the world is able to arrive at firm moral principles. If
man, even in his spiritual life and moral action, is a
mere product of nature, originated through descent, and
if his whole spiritual life is fully consumed by these
merely mechanical factors, then all moral principles are
also nothing else than inherited customs founded upon
those instincts which in the stru2:<]:le for existence have
proven to be the most beneficial to man. Then their
influence is subject to continual change, always corre-
sponding to the existing state of human development.
As these moral instincts have displaced the former
instincts of the animal predecessors of man — say, e. g,^
of sharks, of marsupialia, of lemurides — so they must

580 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

also expect at any time to be displaced in turn by new
and still more useful instincts. And even in the same
period of the development of mankind, the moral or im-
moral principles which have actual authority in each
nation or tribe, have their full right of existence as long
as they are not displaced by still more advantageous
instincts. Moral principles in which infanticide, prosti-
tution, and cannibalism have a place, are inferior to the
highest form of Christian morality only so far as they
do not hold their own in the struggle for existence,
when nations having those low views come into collision
with nations of higher moral culture ; but in themselves
they have full value and full right, so long as they attain
the end of all instincts, and so far as we can .speak of
ends at all ; in such naturalism, apart from human activ-
ity, the end consists only in the preservation of the indi-
vidual and the species in the struggle for existence.

Under these suppositions, moral principles not
only lose their objective and solid consistency in the
mass of mankind, but they also become irrevocably
subject to the arbitrariness of the single individual. An
individual who either has not, or asserts that he has not,
a determined moral instinct, or who allows it to be
smothered by some other instinct which in a normal
individual is subordinate, but in him stronger, is fully
justified in his immoral action so long as he is successful
with it. Every individual is entirely his own master
and his own judge. If man is morally good, it may he
the consequence of an especially happy individual dis-
position, or of an especially clear perception, or of
happy circumstances and influences; but it is not the
consequence of a free subordination under the authority

DARWINISM AND MORAL PRINCIPLES. 381

of a moral law; for there is neither freedom nor an ob-
jective moral authority. The single man is but the pro-
duct of a certain sum and mixture of powers of nature,
acting of necessity, which may with him turn out fortu-
nately or unfortunately. If, on the other hand, man is
morally perverted, society may defend itself against his
perversity; wisdom may try to convince him of the bad
consequences of his perversity for himself and society;
the effect of his perversity may make him sensible of
the bad consequences of his actions : but there is no
other objectively valid corrective of his perversity. If
he is successful in his immoral action, and if he silences
his conscience, tliis voice of the unobserved higher
instinct in favor of the preferred lower — which unfortu-
nately, as is well known, succeeds oftenest and most
easily in the case of those whose perversity has become
the most habitual, and in whom another grouping of
instincts would be most desirable — then the whole affair
is settled, and he is absolved. Let us be understood
correctly. We do not say that all advocates of mechani-
cal or monistic ethics draw these conclusions in reality;
we know very well that many a man is better than his
system; but it seems to us inevitable that the logical
pursuit of that naturalistic principle leads to this
dissolution of all solid fundamentals of moral principles,
and that it is but an inconsequence, certainly worthy of
honor and of notice, if all the advocates of naturalism
do not profess this dissolution of all moral principles
with the same cynic frankness that is shown by many of
their partisans.

We do not say too much, when we charge ethical
naturalism with dissolution of aU moral principles. Let

382 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

US examine them, for a moment, according to the old
but still fundamental division into duty, virtue, and
highest good.

According to the principles of that ethical naturalism,
there can be no diUy at all, no objective moral law,
binding absolutely and in general. The motives of
action are either the strongest and most durable instincts,
or, in case of high culture, conventional agreement of that
which benefits society. In the one as well as in the other
case, when the duty is neglected, the appeal is not made to
something absolutely objective and binding, but either
to the highest instinct (and to this every individual has
the right to answer with a Quod nego\ or to agreement
and custom; and as to this, every individual has the
right to make his reformatory or revolutionary attempt
at change — of course only upon the condition that his
attempt is successful, and that it stands proof.

Relatively it is easiest for ethical naturalism to
establish a principle of virtue^ inasmuch as we have to
look upon virtue as the principle of individual perfec-
tion, and inasmuch as even naturalism, by means of the
indestructible impulse of man to attain moral ideas, can
postulate an ideal of human action. But on closer
examination even the naturalistic idea of virtue vanishes
under our hands. Virtue, as individual moralit}', is
constituted of the factors of duty and of the highest
good, which form the motives of virtuous action. Now
a system of morality which, as we have seen, is entii'ely
wanting in an objective solid principle of duty as the
motive of action, and which likewise, as we shall see
immediately, is wanting in an objectively established
highest good as the end of action, cannot possibly pro-

DARWINISM AND MORAL PRINCIPLES. 383

duce any other idea of virtue than an abstract formal one.
In ethical naturalism, even this form is subject to change.
For, according to this system, not only the motive and
end but also the fonn of moral action depend on that
which in every circle of society and at every time
proves to be the most successful form. It is the proof
of success cr foilure which gives this form a certain
traditional authority and a relative solidity — but only a
relative one, and only until it is displaced by a still more
successful form.

That, finally, ethical naturalism is also wanting in an
objective end of moral action, in the idea and meaning
of the highest good^ is indeed not denied by naturalism
itself. It is true it speaks with predilection of the idea
of species, which man is to represent and to realize, and
in that respect we can say that the highest good of
naturalistic ethologists is the species or the idea of
species.^ But the idea of species is only the empty
vessel which first becomes valuable by reason of its
contents. Now, if we ask ethical naturalism the prop-
erties with which that idea of species is to be endowed,
it certainly mentions properties, but those which are
too rich; namely, it mentions the idea of all that is good
in human life and the forms of human life, in concreto^
the whole sum of all the conditions and acquisitions of
the culture of mankind, art, nature, and science : the
comprehensive idea of these acquisitions, the enjoy-
ment of them, the work at them, is the highest good.
Now, since no human individual can enjoy them all and
work at them all at the same time, every individual, as

♦Compare D. F. Strauss, the most celebrated moral philosopher
df Monism, in § 74 of his "The Old Faith and the New."

384 THK THEORIES OF DARWIN.

to disposition, inclination, and circumstances, has to
enjoy a part of them, to work at a part of them, and to
renounce a part of them. And since each single one of
these good things, however valuable to the individual,
may be refused to or taken away from him, he has again
to learn to be satisfied with that idea of species, however
little it is able to offer him, when separated from the em-
piric possessions of this earthly life. Thus with natur-
alism the highest good is either mentioned in an ab-
straction which does not offer us anything, or which, if
we ask the meaning of that abstraction, is instantly
drawn down into the low sphere and the varied multi-
formity of empirical and individual life, left to the
chance of individual taste, and confounded with that
which is connected with the highest good only in the
second line and in a derived manner — namelv, with the
formations and actions of life which strive at and serve
the realization of the highest good. Ethical naturalism
is not able to produce out of itself an objective highest
good which is for each individual alike attractive, rich,
and comprehensive.

Moreover, since ethical naturalism proves itself insuf-
ficient for the principles of any and all morality, it is but
a natural conclusion that it is still less able to produce
those principles which are characteristic of the highest
representation of human morality known to mankind,
namely : Ckrlstian morality. Ethical monism luis no
room for three ethical fundamental views, whose full pos-
session morality owes to Christianit}', and which gives to
Christian morality its highest motive power. One of
these is a deeper conception of evil as a sin, as a positive
rebellion against the good ; another is faith in a future

DARWINISM AND MORAL PRINCIPLES. 385

absolute realization of the highest good in an end some-
time to be reached by mankind and the individual and by
means of a moral order of the world ; and the third is
the acknowledgment of the full worth of personality.
Evil — to which of coui-se no objective valid moral law,
but only one conventionally established, stands opposed —
is to ethical naturalism nothing but the action of an instinct
which in this given case is not beneficial to man in his
struggle for existence ; the category of good and evil is
entirely replaced by the category of the useful and detri-
mental. With the disappearance of the idea of sin as a
transgression of the divine law, the correlated idea of
holiness also disappears from the system of ethical
naturalism. Besides, blessedness, complete harmony of
the outer and inner man with the ideal in the state
of mankind as well as of every individual, complete
realization of the highest good for the whole as well as
for the single through the means of moral work and per-
fection on the part of man and of holy and loving guid-
ance and endowment on the part of God, is an aim which
naturalism is not able to acknowledge, since, according to
it, mankind and individuals continue in the ever-flowino:
stream of earthly incompletion until both reach their
destiny in annihilation. A moral order of the world is
an impossibility to it, since no holy and loving Ruler and
Governor of the world, but only a blind mechanism,
causes the course of things. Finally, the personality of
man can be only perceived in its worth and in its full im-
portance, when, in the first place, it is in the possession
of freedom, of full moral responsibility ; and when, in
the second place, it lives beyond the span of its short

earthly existence and may hope for a full realization of
25

386 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

all its ideals of virtue and the highest good for itself as
well as for mankind. Both these points must be contest-
ed by monism and natumlism. The place of freedom is
taken by absolute determinism; even man is only a natur-
al product, the highest which naturalism knows, but still
no more than a product of nature ; his personality and
his life, bound to the material body, cease with the death
of this body, and therefore never reach the ideal of
either morality or blessedness. All ideals are and must
forever remain objective illusions which came forth out
of the power of the corresponding noble impulse, imag-
inative objective conceptions of the moral impulses.

§ 2. Scientific Darwinism and Moral Principles,

Whilst Darwinistic naturalism surely injures the moral
principles, the Darwinistic theories are friendly to them, if
they, as mere scientific theories, restrain themselves with-
in the limits of natural science. But in no other point
of the entire realm of contact between the natural and
intellectual sciences is it more difficult to observe the
boundary-line than in reflecting upon the moral self
determination of man ; here natural science is always in
danger qf going beyond its limits.

In the question as to the relation of the evolution
theories to religion, the boundary-line can everywhere be
easily drawn in theory and easily observed in practice.
For it is entirely natural for man to look upon the phe-
nomena of the visible world on the one hand, with a
religious mind, as works and actions of an almighty
Creator and Ruler of the world, on the other, with his ob-
serving and reflecting mind, as products of natural
causes. With this double view, man by no means feels

DARWINISM AND MORAL PRINCIPLES. 387

himself dragged hither and thither between two conflict-
ing views ; he is able in his logical contemplation of the
world scientifically to establish and arrange each for
itself and both in their harmony, and has the full con-
sciousness that the one, like the other, has subjective as
well as objective truth. Or, if a single individual does
not have this consciousness, he must at least admit that
it is not Darwinism primarily which created the diffi-
culty of this combined view of the world, but that the
latter existed for man in the past as well as in the
present.

But the relation of the Darwinian theories to ethic9,l
problems is quite a different thing. Here, in the first
place, it is not the same process which is to be explained
as well in regard to its natural conditions as to its moral
cause. It is true that this double view deserves atten-
tion in so far as we can look upon every action which
results from a moral determination also in reference to
its natural side. If I have to raise my arm in conse-
quence of a moral determination, then physiology and
mechanism can demonstrate with it the whole theory of
the motion of members. But this is not the question,
when we treat of the relation between the natural and
the ethical. In this example, the moralist examines the
motives of my action, the scientist describes and explains
the activity of the nerves and muscles of my arm, and
as long as the scientist is not guilty of going beyond the
boundary to which he is tempted, and which even now
we are endeavoring to make clear, as long as he does not
include the ethical motives in his physiological attempts
at explanation, the one keeps himself neutral with refer-
ence to the other ; each of them knows that he is operat-

388 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

ing in a field which at first has nothing in common with
that of the otlier. In a moral action, as such^ the ques-
tion is no longer as to a process which is to be explained
as Well in regard to its natural conditions as to its ethical
cause, but of a process which either has its ethical cause,
and then in its ethical value ru) natural cause, or which
everf in its ethical motives belongs to the causal connec-
tion of empirical nature with its indestructible chain of
natural causes and natural effects. Now at this point the
scientist, as such, is always exposed to the dano-er of
denying the first part of our dilemma and aflirmino- the
second. For, in moral action, something which is
elevated above nature and its causal connection always
makes its way into this causal connection of nature, and
with its action and the effects of this action wholly enters
into this connection : and natural science which has to
deal particularly with this causal connection of nature
and with it alone, is on that account nevertheless always
tempted to explain everything that it sees coming into
this connection, in all its causes (even in those which no
longer belong to this natural causal connection), out of it
It is therefore always tempted to trace even ethical action
which, with its deeds, makes its way and enters into this
causal connection, but which with its motives stands
above it, as to its motives, back to a natural causal con-
nection ; and thus to contest the independence of ethiciil
motives and their principles — which independence is not
dependent on nature, but, on the contrary, frequently
contradicts it. Ethics must adhere to the fact that the
ethical determination of the will has its origin not in a
natural condition, but in the ethical centre of personality ;
although all the conditions under which the. ethical motive

DARWINISM AND MORAL PRINCIPLES. 389

originates and acts, belong completely to the causal con-
nection of natural life, in which man himself stands as
to the whole natural part of his being. The ethical
realm stands above the natural realm, and shows its
superiority partly by the category of moral demands
whose imperativeness cannot have grown out of the
mechanical necessity of the natural law, because it often
enouofh contradicts the latter and carries out its demands
in opposition to it, partly by the consciousness of indi-
vidual responsibility which cannot be got rid of even by
him who ment;illy establishes a system of determinism
that denies responsibility, partly by the voice of the
injured conscience which cannot merely be the dislike of
a dissatisfied higher natural impulse, when it can speak
of the same action for years, even for an entire human
life, and even, where man has counterbalanced that once
felt dissatisfaction of the higher impulse, by an oft-re-
I)eated satisfaction of it. In Book I, Chapter V, § 1,
we tried to show that even Darwin seems not to have
entirely avoided this danger of explaining the moral
from physical causes ; while at the same time we acknowl-
edge that he otherwise esteems the realm of the moral,
and that he even finds the lofty position of man above
the animal world still more decidedly expressed in his
moral than in his intellectual qualities.

But such an intrusion of the physical into the ethical
is by no means a necessary consequence of scientific
Darwinism — only an ever-present temptation of it. He
who once admits that even by means of development
something new can originate, that even under the full
influence of the evolution theory there appeared in the
series of creation entirely new phenomena with the

390 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

appearance of life and the organic, and of sensation and
consciousness, and still more with the appearance of self-
consciousness and freedom, which phenomena no evolu-
tion theory is able to explain ; and he who takes into
consideration the weight of that other obvious fact that,
in the origin and the growth of each single man, a time
in which he acts with moral responsibility follows in
gradual development a time in which he had but the
value and the life of a cell, — such an one can explain the
whole origin of mankind according to the evolution the-
ory, and yet see something absolutely new coming forth
with the appearance of moral determination. All con-
ditions of the moral determinations of the will may be
and are naturally conditioned, as, indeed, in this world
the entire spiritual life of man is certainly bound to the
conditions of his corporeal life ; all preliminary stages
of moral types which preceded the temporal appearance
of moral beings, and which surround us still, those
stages which appear in the animal world, may have
preceded and prepared the way for the introduction of
morally responsible beings into the world : the moral
determination of the will itself nevertheless remains
something new and independent — something which tran-
scends nature.

If this fact is once admitted, then ethics also has free
play to establish independently and render valid its
principles. And then we have no longer any reason to
treat of the relation of the different ethical principles to
naturo-historical Darwinism ; for this relation is that of
absolute mutual peace.

DAKWINISM AND MOUAL, UFE. 391

CHAPTER IV.

DARWINISM AND MORAL LIFE.

§ 1. Darwinistic Naturalism and Moral Life,

Precisely the same relationship between Darwinism
and morality, which we found in treating of moral prin-
ciples, presents itself when we ask about the relationship
of Darwinistic ideas and moral life in its concrete reality.
He who builds a system of monistic naturalism upon his
Darwinism, if he is logical, and not better than his sys-
tem, comes into inevitable collision with concrete moral
life; while he who limits his Darwinism to the realm of
natural science, remains in concrete life in peace with
morality.

That Darwinistic ethical naturalism also comes into
conflict with concrete moral life, becomes evident from
the joy with which the advocates ot subversion and ne-
gation greet the new principle of the ''struggle for
existence," and make it the principle of their own
actions and social theories. This is not chance sym-
pathy, but is founded upon the nature of ethical natural-
ism. Of him who learns to look upon himself only as a
product of nature, though highly ennobled, we cannot
expect any other principle than that of following his
nature: not, indeed, the ideal nature of man — for this is
an abstraction which man reaches only by means of a long

392 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

process of reflection — but his own empirical nature, as he
finds it present in himself; for this is indeed that natni*al
product as which man has to consider himself according
to that theory. Where this leads to, every body knows who
knows human nature. If these consequences are not to
be found in all ethical naturalists, and if they are per-
haps the least evident in the system and life of the very
ones who otherwise teach naturalism the most logically
(Strauss, for example), we again most cheerfully admit
that many men are better than their systems, and that in
making objection to a system, even an ethical system, we
in the first place do not say anything at all about the ad-
vocates of this system and their moral value. Often
enough some noble and Yruitful truth has been advocated
by men who are pei'sonally contemptible, and often enough
some dangerous error is propagated by men who are per-
sonally very amiable and moral, although the damage
which such an error carries with it, must become evident in
their lives, on closer observation. Besides, we must not
overlook the fact, that what in a perverse system is still
relatively true, and the thing which gives it a relative
vitality, is borrowed from truth and from the correct
system ; and that all those who oppose the present fund-
amentals of morality,and especially of Christian morality,
in a thousand ways live upon and consume the possessions
which they owe to the same influences against which they
contend.

But to whatever relative height the moral nobility of
single advocates of ethical naturalism may rise, it is not
able, at least not from its own principles, to produce
thoroughly moral and truly cultivated characters ; such
are only produced whei'e that which forms the character,

DARWINISM AND MORAL LIFE. 393

flows out of a spring of life whose origin is ahove nature
and its series of causes.

From this we see that for the most part a very low
idea of personality, a very low derivation of the motives
of human action, is found in the works of Darwinistic
moralists — as, e,g,^ we have seen in the works of Hackel
that to him the idea of a personality of God is insepar-
ably connected with the idea of capricious arbitrariness,
and that he derives all actions of all men from the mo-
tives of egoism.

But we also see, from still more common evidences,
the fact that some of the very highest blossoms and
noblest fruits of human virtue, as they ripen on the
ground of Christian morality, are not even acknowl-
edged, much less required, by ethical naturalism. We
think particularly of the virtues of love^ of self-denial^
and of humility. Certainly, we do not deny that men
who are inclined toward naturalism can and do possess
love to a certain degree, but the highest exemplification
of love, the love of enemies in the fullest sense of the
word — not only compassion on the battle-field, but the
full, forgiving, blessing love which renders good for evil,
and even intercedes for a personal enemy, although he
may be the intentional and successful destroyer of our
whole earthly happiness — such a love may perhaps be
demanded and admired by a naturalistic moralist under
the imposing influence of the presence of such a love
and in unconscious dependence on the motives of Chris,
tianity which surround him ; but he will never be able to
show from what point of his system it is to be deduced.
On the other hand, it is easy to show him more than one
point of his system which, far from requiring such love,

394 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

stigmatizes it as simple foolishness. Such a fruit only
ripens under the care of him who gave his life for us
while we still were enemies, and under the influence of
the remission of our sin by our Heavenly Father.

Moreover, an ethical naturalist can also accomplish
much in sdf-deniaZ : he can make many great sacrifices,
if he can thereby reach a desirable end that cannot be
reached without acts of self-denial ; he can show great
strength and patience in a resigned endurance of the in-
evitable; and if we take into consideration the possibility
of its being logically at variance with his system, he may
perform all that which the highest morality requires.
But a renunciation which is more than silent i-esignation,
and which under certain circumstances can also become a
joyful renunciation of all that was beloved and dear to
man on earth, does not grow out of the soil of natural-
ism, and is possible only there where man carries in
himself a possession which would render him still more
fortunate and happy than the idea of species, and where
he knows the cross of Jesus, and understands the word
of the Lord: " He that loveth his life shall lose it ; and
he that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it" Strauss
is a striking proof that naturalism is not able to estimate
the tasks of self-denial at their full importance. In his
''The Old Faith and the New," although he speaks with
great earnestness of moral demands, yet he deeply de-
grades that which is connected with a Christian renun-
ciation of self and the world, when he reproaches
Christianity with "a thorough cult of poverty and
mendicity '^'^ (!) and, regarding its demand for self-denial,
he denies that it has any comprehension of the tasks of

DARWINISM AND MORAL LIFE. 395

industry, of the virtues of home and family life, of pa-
triotism and civil virtue.

Finally, we may make a similar statement in regard
to humility. There certainly are ethical naturalists
also who are modest. But when the prophets of ethical
naturalism again and again announce that the gi'eat aim
of all the discoveries of the evolution theory is to.
show us how far mankind has fortunately progressed;
when their spirit of devotion is nourished by Gothe's
Promethean word : " Hast thou not thyself accom-
plished all, thou holy glowing heart?" — and even when
Hackel prints as the leading motto of his "Anthropo-
geny " Gothe's poem '' Prometheus"; when the struggle
of selection is also elevated to a moral principle, and
the life-task of an individual is limited to creating
elbow-room for himself : then humility, indeed, is a virtue
which a naturalist may acquire, not through his natural-
ism, but in spite of it; and the great naivete with which,
in books of that tendency, haughtiness and passion for
glory are treated as something necessarily understood,
and their own ego is glorified, is a much more logical
result. "We are proud of having so immensely out-
stripped our lower animal ancestors, and derive from it
the consoling assurance that in future also, mankind,
as a whole, will follow the glorious career of progressive
development, and attain a still higher degree of mental
perfection." (Hackel, "Hist, of Great") This is the theme
which is repeated in many variations in all books of
similar tendency. In the same book already referred to,
we read: "Each free and highly developed individual,
each original person, has his own religion, his own God;
80 it is certainly 7iot arrogance when we also claim the

896 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

right of forming our own idea of God." Or, "The
recognition of the theory of development and the
monistic philosophy based upon it forms the best cri-
terion for the degree of man's mental development." L.
Biichner, in his collection of essays, ''A us Natur und
Welt" ("From Nature and the World"), dedicates a
long chapter to self-glorification, and finds confirmed in
himself the word of the poet, "Great destinies are al-
ways preceded by spirit messengers"; and he, still
living, prefaces his own biography in the latest edition
of " Kraft und Stoff" ("Force and Matter"), and on the
first page of the same publishes the testimonial which
he received, when leaving the gymnasium: " The bearer
of this testimonial excelled in the thorough study of
literature, philosophy, and poetry, and as regards style
in his productions showed an excellent talent." In view
of these things, we certainly do no injustice to this ten-
dency when we deny to it the conception of the idea and
the practice of humility.

§ 2. Scieiiiific Darioiyiism and Moral Life.

It is evident from the peace-relation between mere
scientific Darwinism . and moral principles, that naturo-
historical Darwinism also remains in peace with moral
life. We therefore have no longer to treat of any
question of competency in the realm of concrete moral
life, but only to mention the points of contact in which
both realms, fully acknowledging their mutual inde-
pendence, yet in an inferior way exercise some beneficial
influence upon each other.

DARWINISM AND MORAL LIFE. 397

Moral life influences Darwinism in so far as, by its
mere existence, it cautions the advocate of the scientific
evolution theory against effacing the differences between
the moral and the natural, and against degrading man to
the level of animals on account of his connection with
the animal world. The naturo-historical idea of evolu-
tion, in case it should turn out to be correct, would
exercise an influence upon moral life in a three-fold
direction: First, it would add to all the motives of the
humane treatment of the animal world — which ceitainly
without it already has moral demands — a new one, and
establish them all more firmly. Man would then
recognize in the animal world which surrounds him
branches of his own natural pedigree, and exercise his
right of mastery only in the sense which Alex. Braun
expresses, when he says : '' Man consents to the idea of
being appointed master of animals ; but then he must
also acknowledge that he is not phiced over his subjects
as a stranger, but proceeded from the people itself,
whose master he wishes to be." A second service which
the idea of evolution would have to render to the form-
inor of moral life, would consist in the fact that it would
favor all those ethical modes of contemplation and those
maxims which regard the gradual process of develop-
ment and the growth of character as the relative power
of influences and conditions, and that it would give
them hints for the perception of moral growth, in like
manner as, in the before-mentioned parable, the Lord
illustrates the imperceptible and continual growth of
the kingdom of God with the growth of a plant A
third service which the evolution theory might be able

398 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

to render to moral life, would consist in the fact that it
would give to the motive of perfection and progress,
which is always and everywhere a moral lever, a new
illustration and a new weight by pointing at the progress
which development has to show in the life of nature.

CONCLUSION, 399

CONCLUSION.

If now, having reached our goal, we look back upon
the way which we have traversed, we find a justification
of the regret expressed at the beginning, that a scientific
treatment of religion and morality is compelled to take
a position in regard to theories which are not yet estab-
lished. We found the most different problems — scien-
tific, naturo-philosophical, metaphysical, religious and
ethical — inextricably mixed, and were obliged, as one of
our first tasks, to make an attempt at finding the clew
and at examining and testing each single problem, to-
gether with attempts at its solution, separately, although
keeping constantly in mind its connection with all other
problems and their attempts at solution. We found our-
selves led into the presence of a series of the most inter-
esting problems, but not a single solution finished. That
very attempt at solution which brought up this whole
question, and which was repeatedly announced as the
infallible key to the solution of all scientific problems —
the selection theory — we found a decided failure, at least
in the direction of the extension and importance which
was given to this theory. And yet in spite of the hypo-
thetical nature of all attempts at solution, we see inves-
tigators in all the realms of natural science strongly
attracted by the very promising character of these prob-
lems and busily engaged in making attempts at solution ;

400 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

and we see even philosophy strongly attracted by its
interest in these works. Such a diligent work can cer-
tainly not be without gain ; but wherein will this gain
consist ? Will it, as its antjigonists prophecy, be like
that which in former times alchemy brought to science,
which, indeed, enriched chemistry by an entire series of
new discoveries, but did not find what it sought, the one
fundamental element from which all the rest are derived,
which only confirmed, with a power acknowledged even
to-day, the old doctrine of the elementary difference of
the elements ? Will the Darwinian investigations thus
also make all possible discoveries by the way^ but in place
of that which they look for, in place of a common ped-
igree or of a few pedigrees for all organisms, finally only
give additional strength to the permanence of species
and the unapproachableness of the secret of their origin?
Or can we derive from the reasons which the investiga-
tors urge in favor of the idea of an origin of species
through descent and evolution, the hope that that mys-
terious darkness of prehistoric times upon which the
works of our century have shed so much light, will still
be illuminated even to the sources from which organic
species came, and from which mankind also originated?
We must leave the decision of these questions to the
future and to scientists.

But we have to note one gain, which is so great that
on its account we willingly cease our regret in regard to
the unfinished condition of these theories? for we owe
the full enjoyment of this gain to that very unfinished
condition. It is the gain which religion and morality
get from these investigations, and which consists in the
new and comprehensive confirmation of the conviction,

CONCLUSION. 401

which, indeed, was established before, that religion and
morality — Christian religion and Christian morality-
rest on foundations which can no longer be shaken by
any result of exact investigation.

The triumph with which the Darwinian theories were
greeted by many as the new sun before whose rising all
that mankind had thus far called light and sun turns
pale, and the antipathy with which, on that very account,
many to whom their religious and ethical acquisitions are
a sacred sanctuary, turn away from these theories, urged
us to investigate their position in reference to religion
and morality. Now, if these theories had produced a
certain undoubted result, we should unquestionably have
been satisfied with the examination of the position of
religion and morality in reference to this certain result.
But since not a sinorle result of these investi<]rations is
really established, we have found ourselves obliged to
give our investigation a much greater extension and to
discuss even all imaginable possibilities. The beneficial
result of this comparison was, that religion and morality
not only remain at peace with all imaginable possibilities
of scientific theories, but can also, in the realm of the
philosophy of the doctrines of nature,^ be passive specta-
tors of all investigations and attempts, even of all
possible excursions . into the realm of fancy, without
being obliged to interfere. It is in the realm of mere
vutaphysics that we first perceive an antagonist whose
victory would indeed be fatal to the religious and ethical
acquisitions of mankind: this antagonist is called elimi-
nation from nature of the idea of design. Fortunately,
this metaphysical idea is in such striking opposition not

only to the whole world of facts but also to all logical
26

402 THE THEORIES OP DARWJK.

reasoning, it has everywhere, where man perceives or-
ganization and a difference between lower and higher,
especially in the contemplation of the world, .of this
cosmos of wonderful Order and beauty, so decidedly all
philosophical as welbas all exact sciences as its a(lyersa-
ries, it lays its hands so rudely and so destructively not
only upon the religious and ethical acquisitions but also
upon all ideal remaining acquisitions of mankind, that
religion and morality know, when fighting this adver-
sary, they are in firm accoixi with all the spiritual inter-
ests of mankind.

This, in its most essential features, is the pleasing
result of our critical examination ; and such a demonstra-
tion of the immovably solid foundation, secure from all
the change of opinions and all the progress of discoveries
on which morality and religion rest, has still an entire
series of further pleasing consequences in its train.

In the first place, it is a living and actual proof of the
fact that religion and morality give to all sciences the
full freedom of investigation. The religious and ethi-
cal interest itself not only gives, but even requires^ this
freedoni of investigation. It requires it in consequence
of that hnpuLse of truth which religion has in common
with every impulse of knowledge, and which in itself is
an ethical impulse. In consequence of this impulse, reli-
gion must found its possession on nothing else than
subjective and objective truth, and can look upon all the
paths which lead through even the remotest realm of
knowledge to the establishment of truth, only with sym-
pathetic interest. Precisely those who see in reUgion
more than a mere expression of emotion, and all those
who require that their religious life and. the object of

CONCLUSION. 408

their religious faith shall possess truth, subjective and
objective, cannot commit any greater folly than treating
search for truth in any other realm with suspicion, or
even ignoring it They only injure that which they
meant to defend, by rendering the purity of their own
religious interest suspected, and by establishing more
firmly the breach between religious life and faith and the
other acquisitions of culture and interests of their time,
of which neither religion nor science, but only a mis-
guided tendency of their minds and hearts, is guilty.
How much unfriendly and unjust judgment has already
found utterance by means of the pen and voice, in refer-
ence to honest and meritorious workers, on the part
of religious zealots who fail to recognize that close rela-
tionship of the religious with the scientific impulse
of truth ! How often and how much does such a judg-
ment gain great consideration from a public of which
but a few are able to form an independent opinion of the
men and works which are thus abused before their eyes
and eai's, and how much of the aversion to the form in
which the religious life of the present offers itself, on the
part of those men who are thus suspected, is in the last
instance to be attributed neither to the irreligiousness
of these men nor to the deficiency of the present form
of our religious life, but to the repelling efiect of that
unjust treatment !

Another gain of our discussion, correlated to that
just mentioned, consists in the proof that religion and
morality Imve their autonomoxis principh and real/in
which is not at all obliged to borrow the proof of its
truth from the present condition and degree of our
knowledge, but carries it in itself, although it stands in

404 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

fruitful reciprocal action with all the other realms of
knowledge and life. Just as decidedly as we hud to cau-
tion the advocates of religion against keeping themselves
indifferent, suspicious, or even hostile, regarding the ad-
vances into the realm of siecular knowledge, so decidedly
do we like to see the workers in the realm of the knowl-
edge of nature cautioned against confusinor points of
view, in thinking that they can through their scientific
knowledge purify and reform the religious and ethical
realms. They may purify and reform as much as they
please, but only in their own realm. The only thino^
they are able to reform is our knowledge of nature, and
in our religious and ethical life and perception only that
which belongs to this natural part; but this is only the
outer part of religious and ethical life : the source of our
religion and morality springs from quite another ground
than that which they cultivate.

A third gain from our discussion is the actual proof
of tlie harmony between faith and knowledge^ befween tlie
relujious and the scientific vieias of the loo^^ld. In our
investigation we had no occasion for psychological or
theoretical investigations as to faith and knowledge and
their mutual relation ; but if our discussion is not an en-
tire failure, perhaps the actual exposition of a standpoint
on which faith and knowledge may live at peace with one
another, which is not bought by a sacrifice on either side,
and which does not consist in a compromise of the two,
l)ut which has its reason in the deepest and most active
interestof the one, in the full and unconstrained freedom
of the other, a stronger proof for the intimate relation-
ship of these brothers, between whom the present
generation wishes too often to sow discord, than if we

CONCLUSION. 405

had undeilaken long religio-philosophical and theoreti-
cal investigations.

Finally, the results of our analysis have given ns still
another gain: they have led us beyond Lessing's "Nathan''
and his parable of the '"Three Kings/' We call this a
gain, without the least intention of discrediting by it the
rei.otives of tolerance and the points of view for the judg-
ment of the character and religiousness of human
individuals, which lay in that parable, or suspecting
the motives of so many of our contemporaries whose
religio-philosophical judgment is entirely expressed in
that parable. We saw ourselves compelled to make a
choice either of accepting or of rejecting ends in the
world, and found that the world resolves itself into a
senseless game at dice, and that the phenomena become
more unintelligible the more important they are, if we
ignore or even reject teleology. The acknowledgment
of the latter prevented us from seeing in the world and
its events merely the eternal stream of planless coming
and going ; it prevented us from accepting such an end-
less stream of appearance and disappearance, and there-
fore also an endless stream of the appearance and
disappearance of new forms of religion in that creature
for whose appearance we see all other creatures are only
a preparation, and are.even obliged to look upon them as
a preparation in accordance with no other theory more
than that of evolution. It also urged us to inquire as to
the ends and designs of mankind, and we found this end
in the disposition of man for a communion with God, for
the state of bearing his image and of being his child.
Now we have fully to acknowledge that Christianity, like
all religions which claim truth and universal acceptance,

406 THE THEORICS OF DARWIN.

is to be analyzed with the very same means of science as
all phenomena in the world of facts, and that therefore it
is especially subject to all investigations of religio-philo-
sophical, religio-historical, and historical criticism, to its
fullest extent. But precisely such an analysis of Chris-
tianity leads tfs to a result which elevates Christian i-e-
ligion high above all other forms. It also confirms by
means of science what, indeed, is establislied to a Chris-
tian mind as certainty from his o>vu direct experience, that
the quintessence of that which Christianity offei-s us, is
truth and gives full satisfaction to soul and mind. For that
analysis establishes, in the fii*st place, that Christianity
shows us the idea of God and the natiire and destiny of
man in a purity such as no other religion does, and in
such a life-creating power that it is able to satisfy most
completely all the nobler desires and impulses of soul
and mind, and to overcome most successfully all ignoble
ones. Furthermore, it shows us that these gifts of
Christianity ofiered themselves, and still offer themselves,
not onl}^ in philosophemes and xloctrines, in parables and
myths, in postulates and prophecies, but what, indeed,
is not the case in any other religion, in an arranged
course of deeds and facts which, in everything that is
necessary and essential for the acquisition of that idea of
God and for the realization of that ideal of mankind,
legitimate themselves to criticism as historical facts, and
which legitimate themselves as actions of divine man-
ifestation by the foct, that they and their consequences
also are really able to fulfill what they promise, and to
bring mankind nearer to the accomplishment of that
goal which they set up for it. Finally, it shows us,
when it reviews and compares the development of cut

CONCLUSION. 407

ture among all mankind, that the Christian nations have
really borne the richest blossom and fruit which has
appeared hitherto on the tree of mankind, and that
Christianity, for the life of nations, has not only, like
other religions, povvers of preservation, but also powers
of renovation and renewal which other religions are
wanting. Even all the erroi-s of superstition and im-
morality, of intolerance and lust of power, of so many
of its advocates and confessors, at which the adversaries
of the Christian view of the world so willingly pomt,
are but a confirmation of its value. For the}' show us
how divine and heavenly the gift must be, if even such
errors were not able to smother its fruits. If we do
not wish to suppose that mankind has foundations an<l
ends which up to the present it is not yet allowed to
know, we certainly must look for these foundations and
ends where we find the best which has so far been given
to mankind and which has been accomplished by it.

This acknowledgment of Christianity as the only
true and only really universal religion leads us beyond
another sentiment of Lessing, which has found an equally
strong or perhaps still stronger echo in the mind. We
mean the expression that, if he had to choose, he would
prefer the continual search for tVuth to the possession of
truth itself. We emphatically acknowledge the holy
right and the high nobility of this impulse of investiga-
tion and activity, but we need not buy its acknowledg-
ment and satisfaction at the price of being obliged to
renounce a consciousness oi the hope of a consciousness
which is equally indispensable to om* inner happiness as
that impulse of investigation, and which first gives to this
impulse its overwhelming power — namely, the conscious-

408 THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

ness and the lioi^ of really possessing the tnith. For,
in fact, we are not required to make this choice. There
is a possession ol» truth which does not exclude, but
requires, the search for truth : that is the possession of
truth in the answer to the questions as to the starting
point and the goal of our life, the possession of truth in
the fundamentals of our relio:ious view of the w6i4d. It
is the certainty about the starting-point and goal of our
life, which lastingly and effectively invites us also to look
for and perceive all the ways which, in theory as well as
in practice, lead from a firm starting-point to a certain
end, and only the iX)ssession of truth in the fundamentals
of om* religious view of the world gives value and satis-
faction to investigation in a world which, without this
possession, contains for us onh^ transitory and fleeting,
and therefore only unsatisfactory, things, but which
sUuids l)efore us as the work and the theatre of revela-
tion of a God and Father, and therefore gives to investi-
gation inexhaustible joy and satisfaction when we look
upon it from these stand-points.

In like manner as, at the outset of our investigation,
we perceived in organic species creations of tjod, and in
spite of this, or rather on account of it, looked upon
the attempts at exploring their origin with so much
deeper interest, we also see ourselves, in the still more
direct religious realm, not at all condemned to stagna-
tion when we acknowledge Christianity as absolute
. religion. This very acknowledgment alone makes a
real progress possible for us. For every progress, in
order to be a real progress, needs a firm starting-point
and a certain goal; hence that which is shown and
offered to mankind in Christianity. From this stalling-

CONCLUSION. 409

point and toward this end thei'e are tasks enough for
religious progress. The ever more definite investigation
of the facts and doctrines of Christianity, the imi)rovc-
inent and ever more complete reproduction of the
scientific image in which these facts and doctrines are
reflected in the mind of man, the progressing adaptation
of ecclesiastical life in divine service, and organization
to the substance and the need of Christian religiousness,
"the harmonizing of our possession of faith with all
other elements of culture of each period, the working
up of that which is given to us in Christianity into the
spiritual and ethical acquisition of a single personality
and its ever more complete representation and realiza-
tion in the individual and the common life, the pro-
gressing penetration of generations by the transfiguring
light of religion and morality, and the progressive over-
coming of the likewise progrcssingly developing king-
dom of evil — in short, all that which the language of
religon calls the growth of the kingdom of God, is work
and progress enough, but certainly work and progi^ess
on the ground of a certain basis as the starting-point
given to us by God, and \vork and progress toward a
certain goal set for us by God.

It is only from this basis of a possession of truth as
it is offered, to us by Christian theism, and by the facts
of redemption and of a reconciliation of man with God,
that the breach between faith and knowledge, between
religion and the life of culture, which at present takes
place in so many a heart and mind, can be healed ; and,
far from seeking to cripple or hinder those who stand
on this basis, it alone gives to their theoretical and
practical activity its joyous strength and certain end, to

^10 THE THEORIES OF DAR\\1N.

their sphere of knowledge its universal breadth. The
Apostle Paul, at the end of 1 Corinthians, xv, when he
takes a comprehensive view from tlie highest points of
Christian hope to which he found himself led from
those fundamentals, knows of no fitter words to conclude
with and to give it a practical application than these:
"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, l3e ye steadfast, un-
moveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
forasmuch as ye know that your lalx)ur is not vain in
the L#ord."

502\

03S

Tlie borrower must return this item on or before
the last date stamped below, [f another usra*
places a recall for this item, the borrower will
be notified of the need for an earlier return.

Son-receipt of overdue notices does not exempt
the borrower from overdue fines.

Harvard College Widener Library
Cambridge, MA 02138 617-495-2413

Please handle with care.

Thank you for helping to preserve
hbraiy collections at Harvard.

IV^^